Page 5 of The Revenge Game

My plan starts off with some serious online stalking of Justin. His cyber security is atrocious. He happily accepts my friend requests from the fake profiles I set up, addingSteven WilliamsandDaniel Thompsonto his friend list despite their profiles being obvious burner accounts with barely any activity or connections.

It’s very easy to discover where he works, where he lives, and which gym he goes to, which is useful because I need to work out how to worm myself close enough to him to exact some revenge.

I don’t want to actually hurt the guy. I just want him to feel a smidgen of the humiliation he rained down on me over the years. To make him understand what it feels like to be the punchline of someone else’s joke.

Maybe then, the sixteen-year-old version of me who still lives in my head can finally stop flinching at sudden laughter in crowds. Although I’m aware that this isn’t like debugging software. There’s no simple if-then statement that can fix four years of systematic humiliation, no algorithm that can calculate the cost of learning to hate yourself before you’ve even figured out who you are.

I’m thinking about my new project as I sit in a café near Borough Market, watching tourists try to protect their food from entitled pigeons, when my phone starts to chime with theImperial March.

It’s Leo, my former vice president of NovaCore Enterprises and one of my best friends.

Leo was the first person I met who saw past my defensive walls of coding jargon and sarcasm. He became the big brother I never had, someone who seemed to instinctively understand that building my tech empire wasn’t just about success. It was about proving something to every person who ever made me feel small.

Leo also became the public face of NovaCore for me, handling the interviews and conference keynotes with his model-worthy jawline and natural charisma while I happily retreated behind lines of code. I’d spent enough years being stared at in high school hallways to last a lifetime, and the thought of having my face plastered across tech magazines made my skin crawl in ways I couldn’t quite explain even to myself.

“Hey, Leo,” I say now.

“Hey, Andrew.” Leo’s deep voice makes me smile. “How’s London?”

“London’s great. I’m at the Borough Market and just bought a jar of honey made by London bees that cost more than my first laptop.”

Leo lets out a snort of amusement. “I’ll have to check it out when I’m over there.”

“Are you coming to London?”

“Yeah. I’m heading your way in a few weeks for some client meetings.”

When I sold NovaCore, Leo started his own company as a consultant. I’m completely unsurprised that he’s already gained a reputation for making Silicon Valley CEOs cry with his brutal honesty about their business plans.

“You’re welcome to stay with me when you’re here,” I say. “It’ll be great to catch up.”

I mean it. Along with struggling with relationships, friendships are another thing that haven’t come easy to me in my adult life.

Because it turns out the impact of high school was hard to leave behind. I’d gotten so used to being alone during those four years, building an I-don’t-need-anyone defense system so sophisticated it would make Pentagon security look like a screen door with a broken latch.

I carried that attitude with me to MIT, remaining detached from my classmates, a loner even when surrounded by my kind of people.

Besides Leo, my only other good friend is Matthew, who I fell into a friendship with after meeting at a tech CEO conference. Similar to me, Matthew had started his tech business while he was at college, and as the only people at the conference under the age of twenty-five, we’d naturally gravitated to each other. We’d ended up swapping advice, complaints, and the occasional “is this real life?” moment as we navigated the bizarre world of being twenty-something tech CEOs running multi-million-dollar businesses while still being carded for alcohol.

I’d decided not to use Matthew as a confidant for my current project though. A few months ago, he’d accidentally hired the jock he’d hated in high school to be his fake date for his company retreat and then proceeded to fall in love with him. Therefore he probably isn’t the best person to give unbiased advice about revenge plots involving former high school tormentors.

“Thanks. It would be great to stay with you,” Leo says, and I snap my attention back to our conversation.

“How’s work going for you?”

“It’s going well. Busy.” I can almost hear the shrug in his voice. “What about you? Have you decided what you want to do with the rest of your life?”

“Um…not exactly. But I’ve got a project I’m working on.” Although I try to keep my voice as neutral as possible, I can hear the evasiveness threaded through my words.

I’m a terrible liar. Which may be something I need to rectify soon. I scramble to get a notepad from my tote bag and jot downInvestigate acting classeson my to-do list.

Of course, Leo, with his supersonic sense for anytime Andrew is being slightly cagey, picks up on it. His ability to almost read my brain made him a fantastic second in charge.

I could do without that trait right now though.

“What kind of project?” he asks.

I hedge for a second about telling him but then give in. Because if I’m going to succeed in this project, I’ll need a sounding board. And Leo has a proven record in that department.