by Finn, Emilia
So in my mind, I imagine them sitting on the beach with tans, drinks, and smiles, and not moving their asses again until it’s time to come home. But in reality, I see and hear nothing, because their car is parked in an underground parking lot and doesn’t move once after they arrive.
“Next time, we slip some kinda device into his cell or something.” I pace the living room and shoot dirty glances at the couch. “Sophia! I’m speaking to you.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” she rolls her eyes. “I heard you disrespecting me, so now I’ll get right on that for you. I’ll find an expensive ass tracker, slip it into the thug’s cereal, and pray I don’t have to dance in his lap to distract him. Totally not a big deal.”
“Sophia! I haven’t heard him in five fucking days! He could be in the ocean with concrete shoes, and we wouldn’t know.”
“I bet you would know.” Finally, her dark eyes come up and meet mine. “I felt it when Ellie died. I bet if you searched deep inside you right now, you’d feel him there.”
“You’re too blasé!”
“You’re too strung out. He’s fine. Eric would sound the alarms, remember?” She turns her laptop and presents her surveillance feed of Kane’s kitchen. Eric leans against the counter with a stupid grin on his face and his phone pressed to his ear. “He sealed the deal with Laine? Finally! Wait… Karaoke? What the fuck, man? Who are you?”
“See?” She shows me a gentle smile. “He’s fine. Go out the back and work out. Your lungs sound whistle-y. I can hear you from here.”
On the final day of their vacation, late in the afternoon while the summer sun beats down on our houses and turns them into hotboxes, a horde of people collect on Kane’s lawn and confirm today’s the day my brother comes home.
I had only a moment to panic at the crowd, to collect my firepower and prepare to go to war for my brother, but then the whispers filtered in: they’re not the enemy. They’re Jess and Laine’s family, and they’re here to make sure the girls are fine after a week away, just like I want to see that Kane is fine.
We’re all just family who are sick with worry and don’t know how to deal with the curveballs life is throwing at us.
“What’s up with that house over there?” Alex Turner, chief of the local police and family to the blonde twins, sits on Kane’s front porch with a brand-new baby in his arms and scowling eyes as he looks straight into my living room window. He doesn’t see us, but his stare makes me nervous anyway. “Who lives there?”
“Dunno.” Eric stands by the front door with a furry hat on his head and no care for the hundred-degree weather. “Young chick, drives a red SUV. She’s pretty quiet.”
“You go over and scout it out?”
“Nope.” Soph sits on the couch beside me and watches the laptop that sits on my legs. “He hasn’t set foot on our lawn. I can break his security, but no one can break mine.”
Proud of her devious ways, I press a kiss to the top of her head and smile. “It turns me on that you hack people’s shit, Soph. You’re so badass.”
“Everything turns you on. A gentle breeze on a good day that rustles your shorts turns you on.”
Chuckling, I hold her close and don’t explain that it’s not the breeze that gets me excited, it’s her. Just her. Always her.
“Nah,” Eric confirms Soph’s words. “She’s single and alone. She’s not a threat, so I can’t bring myself to peek into her windows.”
“She’s definitely alone?”
“Yup, and she’s hot.”
I scowl and plan to smack him upside the head when we see each other again.
“Why didn’t Jess go over yet?” Alex asks. “I’m not saying you should send my sister into unknown territory, but it surprises me she didn’t get a bug in her ass and do it anyway.”
“She’s busy with Laine.” He shrugs. “Priorities. The chick across the street is tiny and keeps to herself. She’s not a problem for us.”
“The chick across the street is a problem for everyone,” I murmur. “Most dangerous creature I ever met.”
She laughs and leans in close, only to hit the screen Kane’s audio sits in then turns it up. They’re ten minutes out and taking a piss at the welcome to town sign.
It warms my heart a little that Kane huffs about the vacation from hell. That maybe he had more fun with me, even when I nearly died against the rocks, than he had with the twins and Angelo.
When I come back, I’m taking him fishing, and Angelo ain’t invited.
“Fuckkkkk.” When the old car rounds the corner onto our street, Angelo’s groan makes me smile and sit taller. The crew across the street stands taller. They prepare to fight to get their sisters back and inadvertently create a kinship in my heart. We don’t even know each other, but they want theirs back, and I want mine back.
Neither side will win, because Kane’s never giving Jess up. But at least they feel what I feel.
“Alright.” Soph grabs my jaw and drags my face around. “He’s home; he’s safe; he’s kinda in love. We have work to do, because I get the feeling the heat’s gonna hit now that he’s home.”
17
CAB
“Have Richie move the women to the south wing, and then call up Dominic, because we need to plug some fucking holes! Why is this the first shipment to come through since February? Where are my fucking women?”
“Sir.” Joshua’s bottom lip quivers with fear as he whips his cell out and shoots off my orders. “Sir, it’s… well, it’s Bishop. He’s everywhere.”
“So fix it! Why is he still breathing?”
“He’s fast, sir. We have eyes on him, but he moves under our radars and intercepts the drops. Someone is feeding him intel, so he can move fast; then he’s out again before we can stop him. He was trained well.”
“He was trained by us!” I roar. “We own him. This country owns him.” I grab my soldier by the throat and shake him like the insignificant mutt he is. “Put. Him. Down. Or I’ll put you down.”
“Y-y-y-yes, sir. I’ll create a team right away and have it dealt with.”
“We know where he is. We know where he sleeps. Get his fucking data, get everything he’s ever touched, then take him out. This doesn’t end when he’s dead; it ends when his intel is dead too.”
“Yes, sir.” Turning on his heels, he runs from my office with shouted instructions into his phone to have another fucking Bishop removed from this earth.
We got one. I watched him go down myself, but the second remains. He’s like a fucking cockroach; no matter how many times I try to have him exterminated, he slips under and eludes my people.
Kane Bishop should be dead and rotting with his brother. He continues to fuck with my business, which means he has intel, intel that could bury me if it leaks.
“Fuck.” Picking up my desk phone, I dial and fix this myself.
“Yeah?”
“Go. Now. Move in and take him out.”
“Sir?”
“We’ll have PR wrap it up as something else. I don’t fucking care. I don’t pay you to doubt. I pay you to follow orders. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
18
Going UC
Sophia
“I think this is a super shitty idea.” Jay stops at the front door as though he could bar my way out. “Soph, no!”
“Yes! I need to speak to him, Jay. This is just an intel run, so you need to stop being dumb.”
“I know what it is.” He throws his thick arms up and shows off the results of being stuck in one house for months with nothing to do but work out. “I really don’t wanna miss out, babe. It’s not fair.”
Laughing, I tap his stomach and slide under his arm to escape into the garage. “You are thirty years old, not thirteen. Missing out is something you have to learn how to deal with. Pull yourself together.”
“But I’m exhausted, Soph. I’ve been dead for seven months! I don’t wanna be dead anymore.”
“Babe, they have someone glitching thei
r security.” I turn before sliding into my car and study his sad eyes. “Someone—other than us—is glitching their security! Someone was in their home, and we didn’t see it.”
“Bring me with you.”
“No! Things have changed, and it’s more than firebombed apartments and sniper rifles now. They were in his home while Kane was asleep, and they didn’t alert my security or his.” I open my car door and toss my bag in. “They could have killed him in his sleep, and we wouldn’t know who did it. We wouldn’t know till the M.E. was in his driveway, and by then, they’d be gone, and this would be all over. Is that what you want?”
“Of course it’s not what I want! My whole life, and death, has been about keeping him alive, so don’t try to slide in now and throw the guilt game in there. You’re just mad that they broke your surveillance.”
“And you’re just mad he has a new bro! Your judgment is clouded with jealousy.”
“He’s not his real bro,” Jay snaps back. “It’s his rebound bro. And that rebound will be tossed aside twenty minutes from now when I show up to the Checkmate office and declare myself a fucking miracle.” The always-joking man takes on something else, something deadly in his eyes and forces me to stop. “You’re mad because they got in and out, and your security didn’t catch it. If they can do that and get out again without popping up on your computer, then that means you won’t know who hurt Ellie. This isn’t about Kane at all. This is about you and your mission to avenge your sister.”
“So what?” I shout back. “It’s about both! Why can’t it be about both?”
“Because it’s not about both. No matter how much you say it is, this is one hundred percent about Ellie and you. Kane is just a pawn in this game.”
“That’s bullshit!” I rage. “You’re being mean because you want to get out of the house. You want to claim your title right beside Kane, and you want to see the sun again. But deep in your heart, that dark place where you swore I loved you no matter what I had to say about it, you know what you’re saying is bullshit.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“If this was only about Ellie…” I grab Jay’s sleeve when he tries to push past me. “If this was only about Ellie, I would’ve let them take me from that convenience store back in New York City. I had access to the low-level guys eight years ago, and it would have been a direct route straight into the center of hell.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because it’s bigger than that! Someone big, someone important is pulling the strings, and everyone we’ve talked to said he’s not just big, but he legitimately works for the government. I’m smart enough to go to the top, so I refused the short game and decided to take it all the way. I could’ve taken out their pawn eight years ago, but the king would still remain.”
“I’m the fuckin’ king, Sophia! This whole game ends with me. Now get in the car; I’m coming with you.”
“Jay!”
He literally picks me up and carries me to the passenger side. “I’m not staying home today. He already left for work, and you still didn’t slip a fuckin’ device into his cereal. This is what we’re doing, so get in, be quiet, and be fuckin’ happy about it.”
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to slip something into his cereal, and it definitely won’t be a tracking device.
Deposited in the passenger seat, I drag my seatbelt on and fold my arms as he slides into the driver’s side and tugs his beanie lower. “Don’t be mad at me, Sophia. I’m doing what I feel in my gut is right.”
“You’re undoing our work.” I refuse to meet his eyes when he hits the button for the garage door. “You’re a ghost, Jay. Do you have any clue how many men wish they could be invisible while they go about their work?”
“And do you have any clue how much this man wishes he were alive again? I stayed in for months, Soph. I’ve been playing your game, but today, I go home to my brother.”
Pushing the car into reverse, Jay swallows his nerves and backs out for the first time in months. Pulling onto the quiet street and pushing the gear into drive, I study the garage door as it closes automatically, and I wonder if this is the last time I’ll ever see that place.
I don’t even have my laptop with me this time.
“You look beautiful today, by the way.”
“Shut up.” I tighten my arms against my chest and study the blue skies outside. I’m wearing denim cutoffs and flip flops. My hair is in a messy pony, and my nail polish is chipped. “It’s hot as hell out, and my nails are chipped.”
“So?”
“I have boob sweat.”
“Yeah?” Grinning, he reaches across and tugs my hand from my tight grip until I release it with a grunt. “I have ball sweat, so it’s kinda the same, no?”
“You’re disgusting.”
Lifting my hand to his lips, he charms the ice away from my heart and grins. “And my highly tuned investigative skills lead me to think maybe you’re nervous. What are you nervous about, Sophia Solomon, the Wise and Peaceful? What’s got you rattled?”
“Nothing. I don’t get rattled.”
“Rarely,” he amends. “You rarely get rattled. But this is one of those times.” He slows at the end of the street and flips on his right turn signal. “Are you nervous I might die?”
“No.”
“Are you nervous you might die?”
“No.”
“But you are nervous.” Playfully, he separates my fingers and draws one between his lips. He watches the road but sucks my finger and nips the end. “Are you nervous to meet my brother? He’s pretty cool, and you’re adorable. He’ll love you.”
“No.”
My squeaking voice betrays me. I was fine going to meet them today as Sophia Solomon, the random chick who might need a little help setting up a security system because she’s scared to live alone. But now I’m going as Sophia, Jay’s sorta-girlfriend.
“I killed you, Jay.” I tug my hand from his and twine them in my lap. “It was me who wrote ‘deceased’ on your files and made you a new identity. It was me who took you away; it was me who put you in a lot of dangerous situations you didn’t have to be in.”
“He won’t be mad at you, babe.”
“I’m not nervous to meet him,” I repeat. “I’m kinda nervous to blow our cover, though.”
“We’re stronger as a team, Soph. All of us. Opening this today doesn’t mean announcing to the world that Jay Bishop lives. It just means telling Kane that I’m here and that I’ve got his back.” He drives through the single set of traffic lights in town and heads toward the building Kane has set up as his security company’s home base.
Kane chose what might have been the original town hall. Brick, utilitarian, two-story, though the second story is loft-style, and a massive clocktower protrudes from the top. Everything about the building says old and heritage-listed, but the top-of-the-line secure perimeter they have says something else. The sensors that span the whole block and the garage built onto the back say expensive and impenetrable.
And yet… I climbed his walls just as easily as he climbed the local PD’s firewalls.
When this is all over, I might appoint myself head of cybersecurity and fix these yahoos up before someone smarter – like me – comes along and plants viruses all over the place.
“I’m gonna pull back a block, then we’re gonna have to walk it.”
“Jay!”
“We can’t drive up, babe. This has got to be done… delicately, ya know? Barging in won’t really do my brother any favors.” Pulling into the parking lot attached to the park in the center of town, Jay switches the engine off and nervously reseats his beanie. Leaning forward for a kiss, he mumbles, “It’d be super cool if you waited here.”
Scoffing, I push his puckered lips away and climb out of my side. I don’t grab my bag. Everything I need is tucked into the back of my shorts or at home where I should have tied Jay to a steel beam. “You don’t get to play that game, John. You made your choice, so now w
e–”
“John?” He closes his door and beeps the car locked. Walking around to my side, he takes my hand and leads me toward the sidewalk. We’re just a regular couple out for a walk in the middle of a summer day. He’s wearing a beanie, but there’s nothing suspicious going on here. “My name’s John now?”
“Did you know the sensors they have are keyword-sensitive?”
He lifts an inquisitive brow.
“They’re motion-activated, too,” I continue. “But seeing as we’re in the middle of town, they’re going to be tripped all day long, which makes them useless to watch around the clock. But new tech now means they can key in some particular trigger words that might interest them.”
“That so?”
“Mmhm.” Relaxing into it, I allow our arms to swing between us. “I wonder if they keyed any particular names in?”
“You already know the answer to your own question.”
Smiling, I nod. “I do. I know the answer. He keyed your name in himself. I watched him do it. He sees the death certificate, but he holds hope that it isn’t true. And if it is, he’s watching for the organization that hurt you to make themselves known.”
“How’d you get so smart, Soph?” He pulls me under his arm. “How do you know how to do the things you do?”
I shrug. “I honestly don’t know. My brain just works at triple speed for some reason. Ever since I was eighteen months old, I could read. At two, I was memorizing the multiplication table, and at three, I created a lemonade stand and pickpocketed more cash than I earned.”
He laughs. “You’re just a regular street thug, aren’t you? My baby thug. This computer stuff–” it’s like he consciously doesn’t say hacking stuff for fear of triggering the sensors, “–is it something you learned? Did you go to a special school for X-Men to harness your powers?”
I love him. I love that he can be so silly, but in the same breath, so deadly. I love that he doesn’t make me feel like a freak for my differences. “The opposite, actually. School didn’t like teaching me, because no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t reprogram my brain. And since it wasn’t in line with what they wanted, I became somewhat of a problem child. I was too smart, too fast, and while they taught the regular kids, I got bored. I’d made too much of an impression by first grade, so my parents moved us to a new state and let me start in a new school, fresh, and with no preconceived reputation. They told me to blend in, and in the evenings, we would work on my stuff.”
