The room she stood alone in.
The room Roman had rushed out of—without taking the time to lock down his system.
Her plan taking shape, she raced across the floor, and cutting the corner too sharp, she knocked her thigh into the corner of his desk. Pain lanced through her receptors. She shoved it away. She had no time for distractions. With her window of opportunity minuscule, she had to upload the program she’d created, or all would be lost.
In a hurry, she ripped out several strands of hair as she pulled the flash drive from her messy bun and plugged it into a USB port on Roman’s computer. Fingers flying over his keyboard, she added the drive as a trusted device and hit the Enter key.
Easy-peasy. Her codes did the rest, installing her malware and overriding his hard drive. No more electronic babysitting. No more monitoring of her every keystroke. No more restrictions on her computer activities.
He’d see what she wanted him to see—her diligently working to bust the code on Dominion’s lock while her time ran out, a day, an hour, a minute, a second at a time. Upload complete, she removed the drive, plucked the single strand of hair that had landed on his desk, and ran for her chair, pushing it into place before planting her butt down.
Her fingers trembled as she yanked the scrunchie from her unruly mop, and by the time she reformed the disheveled topknot, the flash drive had once again been concealed. Score one for girl power and the most popular hair trend of the last decade.
Hard part done, she breathed deep, willing her pulse to slow as her fingers hovered over the keyboard. There’d be no more popcorn for her in the time she had left. An easy sacrifice. Gotta love technology. Programmable microwaves connected to any device using Bluetooth.
Easy to turn on with the tap of a button.
Even easier to orchestrate a malfunction—precisely when needed.
Adios, Orville Redenbacher’s. Hello Maya Barrows. Time to play. And time to pay.
The door opened, the scent of charred popcorn invaded, and when she looked up from her screens, Roman’s vicious eyes held the promise of violence. Yep, she had a beating coming, and as far as she was concerned…
Totally worth it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As the day dragged on, Jay sat alone in the quiet boardroom, basking in a momentary bubble of solitude. On the floor next to him, a heavy body twitched, and a rumbling snore sounded, breaking the illusion of peace.
Okay, correction. He wasn’t alone. Jeff, the oversized chocolate lab with the big head and even bigger heart, had joined him earlier, plopping down to snooze away the hours—an effective tactic to avoid the chaos of a black ops team preparing for a dangerous mission.
While the sun streamed through the window, Jay smoothed his fingers over the sheet in front of him, following the sharp edges of his messy scrawl. Seven letters. Written in black ink. The same seven letters tattooed in binary code on his wrist, where he could see it always, a permanent representation of who he loved most in the world.
Rebecca.
Every downstroke. Every rounded edge. Every horizontal line. A bit of secret script. Recognizable to no one. Except the woman who’d created the language with him. A way to share love notes without prying eyes seeing.
Fuck—to see her again—in the flesh. To smell the scent of her skin. Trace the shape of her lips. Hear the steady beat of her heart.
He’d give anything.
His life included.
Which meant he had to provide her with the code to control Dominion in case things didn’t go as planned. So, he’d written the letter. The old-fashioned way. And hidden among his pain and regrets, he’d given her the means to save herself, and the family he hoped she’d someday come to see as her own.
Rebecca. Writing her name had been easy. Seven letters. One for each year they’d been apart. The difficulty he faced now? How to say everything he felt without adding to the burdens she carried.
Sincerely? Kind regards? Best wishes? He huffed and shook his head. Having a hard time expressing himself? Nothing new there.
Seconds passed. An eternity existing in each.
Eternity. Jay and Becca. Together or apart. Alive or dead. Despite their tragic past, there was no end to what lay between them. No diminishing of the connection they shared. Not for him. So, he finished the letter in the only way he could.
In the only way that mattered.
With the truth.
Yours,
