Robbie blinked. “So… you’ve been on it?”
I stared at him. “That’s not the point.”
He smirked. “That’s a yes.”
I shook my head and muttered, “You ask too many dangerous questions.”
Because the thing was—yes, I knew the routes, the backdoors, the dead drops. But this wasn’t a playground. And Robbie… Robbie was soft. Gentle. He didn’t belong in that world.
I shoved another cookie into my mouth to stop myself from saying anything else. Because explaining more? That would be the exact kind of stupid Enzo would never forgive me for.
Robbie shifted again, nervous energy buzzing under his skin. “I’ve been working on the coding stuff,” he said, like it was no big deal, as if he wasn’t about to send me into a cardiac episode. “Do you have anything I can practice my hacking on?”
This time, I choked on my cookie. Literally. Coughed so hard I had to slam my palm into my chest.
Enzo would kill me.
Robbie must’ve read the horror on my facebecause he went quiet, pulling his knees tighter to his chest.
“Okay, that’s a no, then,” he said. “I get you’re trying to protect me.” He tilted his chin, enough defiance to show me he wasn’t backing off. “But I want to try.”
I rubbed my temple, the sugar spike doing nothing to help the pounding in my head. My thoughts drifted to the untouched heap of files I hadn’t yet sorted through. Data dumps tied to cases in which Lassiter had been involved. Not black-market stuff. Not snuff videos or anything that would get Enzo frothing at the mouth. Just dry intel. Cross-referenced timestamps. Bank transfers. Anomalous behavior patterns. It was boring.
And Robbie was so good with numbers and recognizing patterns.
Having him look at the stuff was harmless.
Probably.
“Where’s your laptop?” I asked, already second-guessing my decision.
Robbie brightened and rushed off, returning a moment later with the laptop Enzo had given him, still covered inLord of the Ringsstickers. He passed it to me, all innocent, all trust. I could’ve rewritten his entire OS in ten seconds flat.
“First off,” I said, powering it up, “never hand your laptop over to someone like me.”
He looked thoughtful. “Okay, but anyonelikeyou. Notactuallyyou, right?”
I grinned despite myself, fingers already flying over the keyboard. “Have a look at this.”
I passed the laptop back. On the screen, lines of code filled one half, file directories and scan logs on the other. Robbie squinted, his brows knitting in concentration, then his face lit up.
“A search algorithm. I can change the parameters.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Have at it. Then let me know what you find.”
He smiled, already clicking through windows, absorbing everything like a sponge.
“What am I looking for?”
“Anything that doesn’t look right.”
He nodded, serious as hell. “Okay.”
“Pass anything you find to me,” I swallowed, “and use the encrypted upload link that Killian gave us to copy your findings to Caleb, his tech guy.”
“On it.”
What could go wrong?
