Page 12 of Her Irresistible Sheik (Al-Sintra Family #9)

Leona hung up the phone, her fingers still curled around the receiver long after the call ended. A weird, twitchy feeling danced along her spine—a sensation she didn’t like one bit.

She hadn’t grown up trusting gut instincts.

Hunger had trained that out of her early.

When your mom chose pills over groceries, you learned to stop expecting things to get better.

But computers? Computers were consistent.

Logical. No one ever cried or OD’d because a code broke down.

The program either worked or it didn’t. And that clarity had been salvation.

She glanced at her five monitors and the soft purr of a dozen cooling fans. They were more family than anything she’d ever grown up with.

At first her coding had been innocent. Hacking her school’s database to "adjust" some test scores for a few evil bullies had given her the rush she used to gain while playing video games. But once she felt the thrill of slipping past digital locks and seeing things she wasn’t supposed to see? That was it. She was hooked.

Next came her friend’s strep prescription.

She’d gotten through the prescription database to order the medicine, coding it to be already paid.

That had saved her friend’s life. After that, she’d gone bigger, targeting the pharmacy system.

Then a bank account adjustment for a teacher’s mom who’d been scammed.

Leona hadn’t considered it hacking. Not really. More like... digital karma.

And sure, over time, the jobs became bigger. Trickier. More lucrative.

She didn’t need a college degree—she spoke fluent algorithm.

And her resume? Anonymous, encrypted, and whispered about in digital alleys across the dark web.

If you needed something impossible, you needed her .

Not that anyone knew who "her" was. They used passwords. Protocols. Firewalls within firewalls.

Except Clyde.

Clyde had found her. And that man scared the crap out of her.

He had the emotional depth of a toaster oven. His eyes didn’t blink. She’d swear on a Bible the man could stare down a shark and win.

Which is exactly why she charged him double.

He never argued. The man probably knew she was overcharging him. Probably didn’t care. Clyde wasn’t in the business of arguing. He was in the business of killing. And if he wanted access to certain information, he paid Leona and walked away.

Usually.

But now…

She swiveled in her beloved leather desk chair—one of the few splurges she’d allowed herself—and took stock of her life.

Sweats. Hoodie. Bare feet. Cheeto dust on her keyboard tray. There was a bag of potato chips next to her chair, not even the good kettle kind, but the off-brand kind that tasted vaguely of salt and factory air.

She leaned back, stared at the ceiling.

“I think I’ve become a cliché,” she muttered.

The ceiling didn’t respond. Just one sad fluorescent light up there, neglected like the rest of her life.

She’d once been the girl who stole from billionaires to buy antibiotics for sick people. Now she was feeding Clyde breadcrumbs for his next kill.

And this one? This one felt wrong.

With a grimace, she clicked away from her email and pulled up a browser. The hacker forums could wait. Curiosity got the better of her.

Princess Nahla Al-Sintra. Target. Victim. Also—shockingly—not an idiot.

Leona skimmed her photography portfolio. Landscapes. Animals. Candid portraits with depth. Then she clicked over to Nahla’s website design samples. Clean. Elegant. Nothing overblown. Just simple beauty.

“Damn,” she whispered. “She’s good.”

Two hours later, Leona leaned her cheek against her hand, staring at a zoomed-in photo of a golden retriever puppy with a lopsided grin. He was muddy, half-starved, and adorable. And in the background—blurred, but unmistakable—was Clyde.

The photo that had triggered the hit.

“Seriously?” Leona whispered. “He’s going to kill her over a puppy photo?”

The guilt settled hard in her chest. She clicked back to the puppy. Something in that image—maybe the way the fluffball looked straight at the camera like he trusted Nahla—made her stomach twist.

Leona blinked at the picture again. “Damn it. I want a dog.”

A dog wouldn’t snort all her rent money like her last boyfriend had. A puppy wouldn’t ignore her to go off and drink beer with his friends. A puppy wouldn’t expect flawless code delivered within twenty-four hours. It would just wag its tail and want food and love.

“I need to get a grip,” she muttered, pushing the bag of Cheetos farther away like they were the root of all evil. She glanced down. No shoes. Again. When had she last worn shoes?

Probably before the last job.

Or maybe the one before that.

Okay, new rule: leave the office once a day to get healthy food for lunch. Every day.

She could start there. Baby steps. Like, literal baby steps, because her calves had probably atrophied.

Still… something about this job didn’t sit right.

Maybe she couldn’t stop Clyde. But she could slow him down. Maybe reroute a few data trails. Plant some misleading information. Set some digital traps.

After all, Nahla wasn’t just some vapid royal. She had heart. She had talent. And she’d saved a puppy.

If that didn’t make her worth protecting—even secretly—Leona didn’t know what did.