Page 36 of Hacking His Code

“Oh, my mom bought you a ton of stuff.”

My hand flies to my chest. “Me?”

“Yeah. A fancy robe, lotions, perfume, chocolates. Literal baskets full of stuff.” He points over to a corner of the room, which has various gift baskets piled up.

She really is gunning for that grandkid.

Hunter hikes a brow. “You okay? I swear, I didn’t watch you sleep or anything. I’m not a creep.”

But I am,I think to myself as my eyes rove his biceps.

“No, it’s just that waking up in a new place has me unnerved.”

Now ya done it. You managed to make something everyone else has done completely awkward.

“I’m tired. That’s all.” I take a seat, grabbing a file from the stack.

Thankfully, my answer satisfies him.

“Any idea what you’ll be researching today?”

“The best use of my time would be to investigate her ties with foreign entities, but I’m afraid hacking them would trigger some alarms.”

“You can hack anything your little heart desires from my family’s estate. I have multiple VPNs chained together and signals bouncing all over the world, though I would not say that’s a good use of your time.”

“Because you’re sure it’s not them?”

“When my aunt disappeared, she left behind damning evidence that implicated various groups in various crimes, both big and small. The kind of fodder that’s great for blackmail.”

I nod in agreement. “Your logic checks out. Knowledge is power, and whoever had a hand in your aunt’s disappearance didn’t care much for it.”

Hunter clicks and unclicks his pen as he reads through a file, forcing my attention to him. His hair, though an uncombed mess, looks perfect in its disarray, which is totally unfair considering the amount of time I spend trying to get my hair to denounce its relations to poorly constructed birds’ nests.

And his hands…why am I so obsessed with his hands? If anything, they’re entirely too large and shouldn’t be given critical thought at all.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Knowing that I’m being borderline creepy, I grab a leather-bound journal and get to work. “I guess I’ll look at her day-to-day.”

“Good luck with that. My aunt’s handwriting was atrocious.”

Looking through the files helps me to get a feel for who Lucy was, and none of her attributes strikes me as characteristics of a person involved in corporate espionage. She was smart, obsessed with her work, taciturn by nature, and, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, lonely. There’s a familiarity to her I’m not exactly comfortable with. It’s like reading a biography of who I’ll one day be.

Perhaps the worst part is reading about her unrequited love. She never names him, but there was a guy she worked with that she fancied, and as far as I can tell, she took the secret to her grave, never revealing to him her true feelings.

It’s hard to put into words how the passages make me feel, but there’s a strong foreboding sensation that seems to overwhelm me. I see my future written in these journals.

And I don’t mean to say that I’m undesirable. I’m attractive enough, and if I were to actually put effort into my appearance, I’m positive I could turn a few heads. I’m also smart and reasonably levelheaded. I just have a mountain of debt, poor educational outlooks, and a hatred of men holding me back.

Oh, yeah, in case I didn’t make that clear—men are the worst. They simply can’t be trusted.

“Any big breakthroughs?”

Hunter’s voice cuts through my thoughts, paralyzing me for the briefest of moments.

“N-not really,” I stutter out.

Real sly, Ari.