Page 111 of The Honeymoon Hack

“We’d been trying to use outside hackers to get into this server for whatever Claire and Brooke didn’t destroy. But suddenly, fate handed us the incomparable Brie Reynolds. Already on the inside, of all things.” He shook his head and began unwrapping one of the items next to him. “The same Brie Reynolds who’s supposed to be focused on fixing that computer, so I don’t have to blow both of us sky high.”

My eyes snapped back to the KVM. “I’ll take a pass on that.”

But the moment his attention was entirely on his bomb-making, I switched terminals again.

Rack fifteen, server nine. The Meridian server responded instantly. Relief flooded through me—the evidence about my father’s case showed “Upload Complete.” The proof Dad had been framed was safely transmitted to my secure cloud server. Will had access to that server. As long ashemade it out alive, someone would get the data.

But my Fenix intelligence upload crawled along at forty-two percent. Too slow. There was too much data.

I navigated to my virus directory and found the scorched-earth script.

Copying the files from their servers was one thing. But once I made changes—uploading my script or deleting the photos of Scarlett—they might have an anti-virus program that identified the changes. Someone might be alerted to my presence.

I let out a slow breath, staring at the screen. If Lark blew the Orchid server, the Meridian server would go with it. The virus would die before it could spread to Fenix’s broader network, and Scarlett’s photos would live forever.

It was now or never.

I deleted the photos and deployed the script.

It had to work, but we wouldn’t know for three days.

I switched back to the Orchid server. Same upload error. One percent. Failure.

“Any progress?” Lark called without looking up.

“Still troubleshooting.”

Back to Meridian. Forty-three percent uploaded. I pulled up another diagnostic tool, continuing the pretense while willing my real upload to move faster.

Lark stood and surveyed his handiwork. “How much longer?”

“Working on it. These network issues are persistent.”

He started walking back toward me, and my blood turned to ice.

Then I heard the unmistakable sound of wheels on the server room floor. A crash cart appeared at the end of our row, pushed by the most wonderful and reckless man in the world.

Will.

My heart stopped, then exploded into frantic beating. Relief and terror crashed together in my chest. He was here—my Will was here. But, oh god, he was walking straight into hell. Larkwould kill him without blinking. I wanted to scream at him to run, to get away, to save himself.

But instead, he looked directly at me with those steady brown eyes that had anchored me through every storm.

“I can fix the upload problem,” he said.

Chapter 42

Will

Lark’s rifleswung toward me before I’d even stopped the crash cart, and my heart slammed against my ribs like it was trying to escape my chest. His finger moved to the trigger.

This is it. This is how you die.

But not before you get Brie out. That’s all that matters now.

“Well, well. The fake husband shows up.” He advanced two steps, keeping the weapon trained on my chest with the steady hands of someone who had years of deadly experience. How did he know we weren’t really married? Had Brie confessed? “You think you can waltz in here and play hero? You’re about to find out how fast this ends.”

The barrel looked enormous from this angle—a black hole that would swallow everything I’d never have time to say to Brie, everything we’d never be able to do together. My fingers wanted to shake, but I forced them steady. Forced my voice to remain level even though my throat felt like it was closing.