The Insiders Read online

  I felt the blood draining from me. That tickle was replaced with fear, real fear, the kind where I felt a cold trickle of sweat on the back of my hairline.

  He was right.

  He was so right. I knew the laws. I knew the risks. I knew my father had job contracts with the government. I’m not playing in the little leagues. I messed with a professional, a big and powerful professional who may or may not have any sentimental feelings toward me. He probably had none, to be honest. I was a risk to his empire.

  Then I asked, “He’s in New Zealand?”

  “What?”

  “There was an event here earlier. I thought—”

  “It was a charity brunch. Quinn does a lot for nonprofit organizations. But no. Your father wasn’t in attendance.”

  Oh.

  I swallowed over a lump in my throat.

  Why did I care?

  I shouldn’t. I mean … yeah, why did that bother me so much?

  Kash sighed. “You wanted to get your dad’s attention?”

  “No.” I said the word quickly. Too quickly.

  “It’s okay if that’s what you were doing.”

  God.

  Another wave of embarrassment rode through me, crashing. He was right. I was acting like a child. I was almost twenty-three, and I had acted out like a rebellious teenager. It was the equivalent of drinking too much, taking drugs, racing cars—what some wealthy kids might’ve done. Not me. I crashed their internet. I basically walked up to their house, and instead of knocking like a normal person, I set it on fire.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kash was silent a moment.

  “I am.” I smoothed my hand out over my shirt before looking up again.

  He was standing a few feet from me, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows pinched together. He didn’t believe me.

  I said it again, “I really am sorry. I … I wasn’t thinking. And you’re right. I was told to go back where I came from, in essence, and I reacted. I was mad, and hurting, and I lashed out in the way I can lash out. I am truly sorry.”

  His chest rose slowly. He drew in some air before letting it back out, just as slowly. He shook his head. “I know. I can see that.” His eyes softened. The lines around his mouth smoothed out. “Look, they won’t be told who hacked into their privacy. They won’t know it was you.”

  “Matt knows.”

  “Matt knows nothing. Matt will know what I tell him to know.”

  He said it so swiftly, with a hint of violence, and that familiarity was whispering at me again. How he said those words, that cold look in his eyes … What was bugging me?

  “You need to put back what you took, and you need to delete what copies you made. By now, the team’s got most of your bugs out of their systems. You will go in and remove the rest.”

  “Go in? What do you mean?”

  Not … No way. He gave me a meaningful look.

  My eyes widened. “You mean go into their security room and use one of their computers?” I didn’t know if I was salivating at the chance to see what they were working with on their end or dreading it because they would see me in person.

  “Quinn wants you removed from the estate. I won’t allow it. But you will not be free to walk around any longer, not until you’ve earned trust back.”

  “Trust? Whose trust?”

  “Mine.” His eyes were heated again, smoldering at me. “You will earn my trust. After removing your viruses, you will be stripped of computer privileges—”

  “You can’t do that! I need to work on my graduate project. I—” I surged to my feet.

  “Watch me.” He met me, surging right back at me.

  I didn’t move. Neither did he. We were almost touching, staring back at each other, both angry, heated breaths coming in and out, and I was suddenly hot for a whole other reason.

  God’s sake.

  I needed to look away. I did. I couldn’t.

  I wanted to reach out. I wanted to touch him, and my gaze fell to his chest. I could see how his shirt molded to him, hugging him so perfectly, and I could desperately imagine the feel of him against me. So strong, firm. Earlier, I had thought there wasn’t an inch of fat on his body, and now I was salivating, wanting to test my theory.

  Kash broke first, stepping back. His voice came out ragged. “Your punishment is this: You will remain in this house. You will only walk on the grounds with a security guard, and when I feel you can be trusted, you will earn your freedom more and more.”

  “My God,” I bit out, but I wasn’t sure if I was reacting because of the punishment or something else. I stepped back, drawing more air. I needed to clear my head, because it was swimming.

  “Prison,” he said. “You could be made to disappear and never come back. That’s a drastic measure, but in a way, it’d clear up your father’s problems a whole lot easier for us. You need a reality check of what I’m saving you from. Quinn wants you gone. She doesn’t give a shit about keeping you protected. I’m doing this. Me. You’ll do as you’re told and you’ll do it without an attitude or, so help me, Bailey, you can get fucked in a thousand different ways here. None of them pleasurable. Deal with it.”

  Really. Those exact words.

  Okay.

  That burned.

  I wanted the entire summer with my computer. I wanted a head start on my graduate project, and I couldn’t do any of that now. I had screwed up, but damn, it was going to be a hard one to swallow.

  He started to move away, and then he stopped. He was half turned toward me, his head tipped back, stormy eyes taking me in.

  “You never asked who noticed your breach in the first place.”

  My throat swelled up for some reason. “What do you mean? I thought their system would’ve caught me.”

  His phone buzzed in his hand, but he ignored it. “You disabled their alert system almost right away. It was one person who realized you were in the system. If he hadn’t, who knows when they would’ve realized you were there. Quinn and your siblings didn’t know you hacked them until they were told to check their accounts. They were in, doing their own thing at the same time you were in there, taking their things.” He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly. “It was the same person who shut you down, too.”

  I felt it. The burn was back. It was spreading from my throat, to my stomach, to my feet. Traveling all the way down my legs, setting every nerve on edge.

  “Who was it?”

  A look flared in Kash’s eyes. Menacing, a warning, but there was something else there. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. And he said, “Your father. He’s the one who caught you. You got your wish.”

  A beat.

  He looked at his phone.

  “Your dad’s coming back. He’s on the plane right now.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Adrenaline was high.

  He was coming. My childhood idol. The guy who was my sperm donor. I went through varying phases of excitement, fear, loathing, anger, impatience, and back to excitement. No matter the home front, no matter how he had hurt my mom—

  And eeek. Ground to a halt. Hold up.

  He hurt my mom.

  That stomped everything.

  Once I remembered that, dread took hold of me for the night and through the next day. But I was on pins and needles, expecting a guard to knock on the door at any moment.

  None came.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  Kash had to return to where he was before the whole hacking incident, and even he didn’t text.

  Nothing. I was on radio silence. Or I was on prison silence. I was in isolation.

  The entire first day, I was waiting. Just waiting. Waiting to meet my father. Waiting for Matthew to sneak in. Waiting for Kash to show up and scold me for something. Waiting, waiting, waiting. That transitioned to a little less waiting the second day.

  Boredom hit me that afternoon. Drastic, dull, soul-consuming boredom. I even took a trip to his garage to see what parts were there, if there were extra wi
res lying around. Maybe it was time to build a robot to keep Cyclone’s robot rabbit company, and once that thought hit me, I remembered that I had saved his entire file. It was one that I saved to my phone, not to the computer or internet. My phone, the one thing I still had access to. It’d been an automatic response when I saw it. I knew I’d want to read it later on, maybe even before bed. That was my version of nighttime reading.

  Kash didn’t say I couldn’t—

  No, he actually did, but would he really be that pissed if I peeked ahead, trying to help Cyclone? I could hide that I read it? He said no Wi-Fi. Technically, my phone didn’t have Wi-Fi anymore. It had satellite connection, but I was honoring our agreement. He said no computer stuff. It was hard. It was painful. But I was sticking to it.

  So that night, I curled up on the couch and started reading.

  I kept reading his file, all through the night, until I realized it was three in the morning. Three thirty-two, to be exact. Putting it away, feeling my stomach growling, I dismissed both and headed for bed. Cleaning up, brushing my teeth, I pulled on some pajamas and crawled under the covers … only to reach for my phone again. There. I saw a text that I had missed somehow.

  Clicking on it, I saw it was from Kash.

  Cameras show you’re being good. Did you tamper with the feeds?

  I snorted out loud, then wiped the grin from my face. I wasn’t supposed to find that funny.

  I’m being good. Reading on my phone, if you want to know the specifics.

  Buzz from him.

  Someone will come to the house tomorrow just after seven in the morning. You’ll be taken to the offices to finish cleaning up your mess.

  A second buzz from him.

  Go. Clean everything. Go back to the house.

  A third buzz.

  Your father had to stop in DC for something, fyi.

  Oh. That—

  Nope. That didn’t matter to me. He had hurt my mother. That’s all I cared about now.

  Okay.

  I started to go back to my reading, but then I texted again. I couldn’t help myself.

  Me: You broke the cardinal rule.

  Kash: What’s that?

  Me: You didn’t ask what I was reading. You can’t have that many books in your library to not be a book lover. You should know that rule.

  Kash: I already know what you’re reading and you lied.

  I almost dropped my phone. How did he—

  And it hit me. I forgot for a moment. Cursing, I typed out again, almost punching the phone.

  Me: Not fair. Not right. No privacy.

  Kash: You lost that privilege.

  A second buzz.

  Kash: Earn it. Earn. It.

  I didn’t have a response to that, and after I didn’t text again, he didn’t either. Sighing, curling up on my pillow and tucking the cover to my chin, I folded my arms over it and brought my phone back up.

  I read almost the entire file that night, finally stopping around five in the morning.

  It was the doorbell that got me up in the morning.

  It was who was ringing that bell that woke me up.

  Peter Francis stood on Kash’s doorstep.

  * * *

  Kash said “someone.”

  Well, someone it was.

  I had hoped, but a part of me assumed it’d be a guard. Nope. My da—Peter Francis, I mean.

  It was actually him.

  I wouldn’t pass out. Nope. No way.

  My heart was pounding, and holy hell; my hands were all sweaty. When did they get like that?

  I remained quiet because this was his show. He showed up. No doubt he was pissed, and here I was. The outlier child, messing up his cyber security, and he had to fly all the way back just for me.

  I should’ve been overjoyed.

  Okay. I kinda was.

  This was my father. Holy shit.

  Back to the sweaty palms.

  He’d been my idol, growing up. That awestruck doesn’t go away. It’s in the blood, but I was fast remembering my circumstances, and that I was still not wanted here, so that was helping with the fangirling going on in me.

  Still. Quiet. I could do that.

  I swallowed.

  He was staring me down, studying me. I was studying him right back. Dark hair. Blue tint to it. Hazel eyes like me.

  I had his brain.

  This was my sperm donor. That was for sure.

  He was taller in person.

  I knew his stats. I knew his weight, 190 pounds. His height at six feet exactly. He probably shaved once a day, and there were some whiskers showing, so I figured he’d skipped it this morning.

  And he was one of the most powerful men in the cyber world.

  I was about to hyperventilate here.

  “Are you ready?”

  That was it. Those were the first words my father ever said to me.

  Was I ready?

  I blinked. I couldn’t have heard that right. “What?”

  He stepped back, moved aside, and gestured to the main house. “Kash said you would fix everything, since you could do it the fastest. I’m going to watch you while you do it.”

  Watch me.

  He was going to walk me there, watch me, and then what?

  “Really? That’s all you have to say to me?”

  He shifted again, his head down, and he tightened his mouth.

  “Some of your breaches are time sensitive. You broke them. Kash is right. You’re the best one to fix them. I could, but it would take me longer.”

  This was Kash’s idea? I thought it’d been Peter’s.

  Peter was moving forward, but then stopped. He was waiting for me. He didn’t look back at me again but was still pausing. It was obvious. I got the unspoken message, and with a heavy sigh, I walked with him.

  My heart was sliced in half.

  As we walked, pieces of me split off. I was leaving a trail behind me.

  He was here for work. For time-sensitive shit. Because I could fix everything faster than he could.

  There went another piece, just thinking of that.

  We kept going and my mind was racing.

  I should make him explain everything to me.

  I should confront him about Chrissy, about how he left her, why he left her. Why everything. Did he know about me? Did he not know about me? If he did, why didn’t he reach out to me? Talk to me? Even send a card? Something. Anything.

  Why wasn’t I good enough?

  What was wrong with me?

  Why didn’t he love me?

  All those questions were ricocheting in my brain, but at the same time I was memorizing everything about him.

  I was walking next to my dad. Whether I would like him after this or not, love him after this or not, hate him after this or not, this was a day I would always remember. It would be in my brain, and not because of my photographic memory. This was a day that any child in my shoes, either forgotten or left behind, would remember until the day their heart stopped beating.

  He wasn’t dressed how a business dad would dress—or maybe he was. He wore khaki pants. A dark blue warm-up jacket. There was a white collar underneath, so he had a nice-looking white shirt, one that could be a polo.

  He had a Rolex Daytona on his wrist. Rose gold band.

  A wedding ring.

  His shoes were Nike sneakers.

  His hair had been combed to the side. There was a part from where his fingers wove through it, brushing it over. His face was tan. His hands tan. He spent time in the sun, maybe from golfing. I didn’t know. I remembered a magazine article that said he enjoyed rowing.

  Who rowed around here?

  Well, maybe he did.

  I was still going with the golfing though. His house was in the middle of his own personal golf course.

  He walked with a slight bounce that pushed him further, to go faster, and as if sensing my scrutiny, he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. His head went down. His shoulders bunched forward, and he picked up his p
ace.

  He wanted to get this done with.

  He wanted to be done with me.

  We went past the main house, around to the side, and to that building with the three garages I had noticed when we drove in. As we drew nearer, the back door opened. A guard came out, holding the door for us.

  No words were exchanged. The guard didn’t even make eye contact.

  Peter moved forward, leading the way.

  I paused, just on the doorstep, and looked up at the guard. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe I wanted to memorize him, too.

  Or maybe I wanted one more second to remember this morning.

  Seven in the morning.

  A slight chill in the air.

  The sky was a pewter gray.

  I heard the sounds of birds. Ducks. Others chirping.

  I felt mist in the air. Knew it would rain later.

  This morning was the day I walked beside my father.

  This was what I wanted to memorialize, because once I went in there, when I sat behind a computer, I wouldn’t think about this again. I would get sucked into that world and all of this would go away, so I drew a breath in, waiting one beat, knowing everything was committed to my long-term memory, and then I went inside.

  He was waiting for me, a funny look on his face.

  I ducked my head, avoiding his eyes.

  He opened a door, and going through it, I was in the main control room.

  This was my world, my haven.

  The main computer was already booted up. He waited at the door, and there was no reason for words after this.

  I sat down, got up close to the computer. There were headphones at the ready, and once I started, someone brought me coffee. I didn’t ask, and I knew it wasn’t him, because it was a slender wrist, but I drank it. I kept working.

  It took an hour to put everything back for Cyclone’s files. Thirty minutes for Matt’s. Forty-two minutes for Seraphina’s. Forty-one minutes for Quinn’s. I hated it, but it was another full hour to return everything for Marie.

  I never hacked him.

  What they wanted from me was done. I restored everything and I could’ve pulled away from the computer, shut it down, and returned to Kash’s villa.