Chapter 12

Hannah

“If you text someone this code, as long as it’s not in the conversation thread, it will reboot their phone.”

I sent Kyle the text. His phone beeped. He opened his messages and instantly his screen went black.

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” He grinned as his phone restarted. And then it crashed again. He frowned. “Okay, so that’s not so cool. How do you fix it?”

I sent him another message. When his phone beeped again, I took it from him and responded to the text.

“There you go. That bypassed the bug,” I said.

“That’s it? You just reply to the message?” Kyle seemed disappointed.

I laughed. “Sorry if it’s too simple for you. But it’s only that easy if the person you sent it to is in the text conversation. If it’s in list mode, every time they try to open the message, it’ll reboot their phone.”

Kyle stared down at his phone, chewing on his bottom lip. “But it’s not really a hack. It’s a bug in the OS.”

I sighed and poured my coffee. “Technically yes. But you wanted to learn something new. So there, I taught you something.”

My head was a conflicted mess. I was irritated at how quickly I was losing the plot. How easy it was becoming to forget everything.

And I was gleefully exuberant as well. I felt like a teenager again, in the first throes of a romance.

I was a damn fool.

So when Kyle had followed me into the break room talking about a bad code he had tried to cobble together last night, my first instinct had been to snap at him. To tell him to get lost. But then I had remembered that it wasn’t Kyle’s fault my life was in chaos. So I had changed my demeanor and decided to show him something.

Nothing major. He wasn’t ready for that. But I could give him a fun little glitch to annoy his friends with.

Clearly he didn’t appreciate my efforts.

The younger man’s stringy hair fell into his face as he squinted down at his phone. A few seconds later my phone pinged and I opened it, only to have it crash instantly.

Kyle chuckled. “Okay, yeah, that’s pretty fun. It’ll totally piss off my mom.” He instantly sent the non-Latin string of characters to as many people as he could think of. “Though I wonder if you could use the bug to control more than the off function,” he mused.

I raised my eyebrows. “I’m sure, if given enough time, someone could code something to do that.”

Kyle passed me the box of doughnuts that someone had left out on the counter. “Think we could do that? Together?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say no. But Kyle wasn’t being too pushy, which was a pleasant change. What could it hurt to share some of the knowledge I had gathered over the years? It could be nice to talk to someone in the real world about the things I could do.

“Sure. Why not? Nothing too malicious. We don’t want the coppers breathing down our necks for a dinky iPhone hack. But yeah, let’s see what we can come up with.” I took a bite of a powdered sugar doughnut and wiped my fingers on a napkin.

Kyle looked ready to come out of his skin. “For real? That’s awesome. Maybe I can tweak this glitch a bit. Make it do something more…” His voice trailed off as he walked out of the room, engrossed in his new project.

My phone dinged in my pocket and I pulled it out. My heart thudded. It flipped and tumbled.

Good morning, Hannah. Should we try ice-skating again? Maybe I could redeem myself.

I wanted to massacre the butterflies running riot in my belly. There was no place for them here.

I wanted to call him up and tell him, Yes I want to go ice-skating with you again! I wanted to throw caution to the wind and embrace the madness that he evoked inside me.

But I couldn’t.

Because of the plan.

Always the goddamned plan.

It was essential to gauge my reactions to him carefully. I had to think about what would make him want me. What would make him view me as the woman he could tell his secrets to.

I needed those secrets.

They were integral to everything.

But…

I found myself liking him. The way he laughed. The way he asked me about my day. The way he listened when I spoke, as if what I had to say was the most important thing to him. The way he had let the boy teach him how to ice-skate, holding on to that silly plastic penguin for dear life, without caring if he looked stupid.

There was more to Mason Kohler than being an FBI agent. Than being incredibly good-looking and smart.

There was a heart to the man that moved me. A depth of character that intrigued me.

He hid his pain carefully, letting it out only when he felt safe to do so. And he felt safe with me.

I wasn’t sure I could abuse that power. Whether it was expected of me or not.

And that was risky. Because I didn’t want to like him.

I could be attracted to him. Lust after him, even. But never like him.

That was not part of the plan.

Being dishonest wasn’t hard. I had lived a double life for a long time. My mother and Charlotte had no idea the lengths I went to in order to get justice for us. To make the right people pay for crimes they had committed.

My coworkers didn’t realize that they sat in the same room with a woman who could destroy them if she so chose.

Wearing a smile while I plotted vengeance wasn’t new for me.

But using Mason felt different. I didn’t get a thrill from kissing him with a mouth that spewed lie after lie. It was difficult to look into his blue eyes and assure him I was genuine. To bleed deception disguised as sincerity felt wrong.

This was the path I had chosen. The course I had devised and designed.

But the real and the invented were starting to become blurred. Mason wasn’t black and white. Not anymore.

Yet I had made my choice.

Hadn’t I?

Good morning, Agent Kohler. I’m not sure either of us is up to another round of kissing the ice. Maybe we could think of something else to do.

It was just coy enough to tease him. Flirty enough to draw him in.

Is it too soon to make plans for the weekend? No ice-skating, then.

I buzzed with excitement.

No. Not soon enough. Maybe a movie. Your place. We can order in.

Was that too forward? I didn’t want to come across as easy, but I wanted him to think I wanted him.

I did want him.

Discomfort froze me.