Page 5 of Hidden Ties

She didn’t know why they even bothered hiring her in the first place. The dinosaurs still employed by the casino matched the infrastructure. Her boss, the head of IT, Edmond, finally kicked her ass out before she had worked there a full year when she showed him a simulation of what she could do to fix theirfirewalls. Now Valerie was shit out of luck for getting a good reference, and it didn’t look good on her resume that her only place of employment in IT was for a job for less than a year after graduating.

Getting fired from your first big-girl job was just simply a bad look.

All she had to hope for now was for Game Hookup to literally hook her up by wanting to buy her game that she had been working on since she’d started college.

“Well, you were right. They’ve been shut down completely. Anyone who was gambling there since the attack this morning is still trying to get their money out of the machines.”

“Good. I hope no one steps foot in the Horseshoe ever again,” she said with no remorse as she showed the same respect to Justice when the head of his avatar landed in her crosshairs.

“Dammit,” Justice huffed. “You got me.”

Grabbing a Twizzlers from the now half-eaten bag, she placed the end of the red twisted candy in her mouth and tore it. “Up for another one?”

A yawn could be heard through the mic. “It’s pretty late. I got work in the morni—”

“Oh, come on, Justice. We have to at least break the tie.”

“Fine,” he gave in. “One more. But I mean it; that’s it.”

Tearing off another bite of her stick, she began setting up the next game and taking out some of the health and other helpful items on the map to make it harder. They had been playing all afternoon and into the night, but she was going to make this one count.

She was about to pressStarton the game when she first heard it. When she looked out the window, the flashing blue and red lights off in the distance told her she wasn’t imagining the sounds of the sirens.

“Is that police sirens?” Justice asked, now hearing them through her headset.

“Yep. What the—” Valerie stared out the other window in the room that faced the street. “Oh my God.”

“What? What is it?” He knew he was about to get some juicy intel based on her reaction.

She had to blink at what she was seeing to make sure she wasn’t imagining the scene. “They just parked between our houses.Holy hell, I think they might be going after Sal!”

“Are you serious? No way!”

Suddenly, Valerie swallowed hard at what she was witnessing now. “Um, Justice …”

“Yeah?” You could practically hear Justice sitting excitedly on the edge of his seat.

“They’re heading towardmyfront door—” Her voice came out a bit strangled with fear. “Not his.”

Stunned silence met her on the headset, followed by the knock on the front door that had her jumping out of her gaming chair.

“Valk … Valkyrie,” he called out when she didn’t respond as she took her headset off. Placing it on her desk, she could still hear his tone turning serious as he yelled over the mic, “Don’t open your mouth! Don’t say shit—”

As she walked to the front door, she tried to remind herself,Be cool. You didn’t do anything wrong.But why couldn’t she help herself from feeling like she did?

Upon opening the door, she somehow made her voice as cool as her thoughts. “Can I help you?”

It was the biggest and scariest cop who spoke. “Valerie Monroe?”

“Yes?” she managed to strangle out, her coolness running out quickly.

The cop took her wrist in a tight grip, and before she knew it, cold metal was tightening on her skin. “You’re under arrest for the cyberattack on the Horseshoe.”

“I’mwhat?” With all collectiveness completely lost, the cop kept speaking, giving her her rights.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for—”

The haze Valerie went under no longer let her hear the words the cop spoke to her. Everything spun and became blurry in the flashing blue and red lights, and before she knew it, she was being shoved into the back of a cop car.