“I don’t like assholes who prey on kids,” Phoenix answered without remorse. “Personally, he got off too easy with a bullet to the head, but Cryptic’s client wanted it done quick, so that’s what I did.”
Rose made sure they were clear before muting her end of the call and turning to her two-year-old son. “Hunting down pedophiles always gives me an appetite. Wanna go get chicky nuggies with Mama?”
Her son’s toothy smile made the horrors of her day completely vanish.
CHAPTER 2
Gl!tch.OS: Let’s get this over with: Trek or Wars??
* * *
Two Months Later
Black: D-pawn to C4. Suck it.
Keys chuckled at the message waiting for him upon returning to his room at the clubhouse. Construction across the street from the club’s property was going very well. While lack of rain wasn’t great for agriculture and the ecosystem, it certainly helped in the construction business. Tom and Keys were extremely pleased with the progress, and both were talking about looking into employees soon.
It was hard to believe but Master Key Security Solutions was finally going to become a reality. Keys had been dreaming about this for as long as he could remember. He’d started small, not wanting to put the cart before the horse. Problemwas, he could handle cyber security all day long with his eyes closed and fingers taped together.
But he wanted to help more. He wanted to help those whose problems were in the real world, too. His club brothers were all for helping, but they weren’t business people. Neither was Keys. So he kept his company small and around town until he met Tom, who was married to Simone, the best friend of Scar’s ol’ lady. It seemed like such a chance encounter, but one Keys was fully prepared to take advantage of.
He had the capital but it was Tom who had the knowledge of what to do with those funds and the expertise to see this venture through. Keys had no issue bringing him on as a full partner. He wasn’t a member of the club nor was he a veteran, but that didn’t make him any less trustworthy.
Keys looked over at the chessboard he had set up on his nightstand. She’d taken his pawn. It was the first piece lost in their newest game of Truth or Dare Chess, but the stakes were higher with this game. New rules put challenges on each piece lost, not just the overall winner. So far, they were tied for games, and the winner of this would be pronounced King.
In the months since Keys had helped theNon Crasstop a serial amputator, he’d kept in contact with the other tech. He had to admit, she’d done an incredible job of hiding who she was. Tracking her was probably easier than she hoped, but Keys also wasn’t some amateur who just bought his first keyboard.
Still, he refused to call her “MV” or “Cryptic”. She tried to get him to call her “Enigma” but even Keys felt that was too on the nose. But since she didn’t know him beyond “Keys”, he supposed it was only fair for her to also have a moniker. Mostly he stuck with “Glitch”, which was short for her handle of “Gl!tch.OS”. Regardless, he never talked about her out loud, and it even sounded wrong in his head.
He’d discover who she was eventually. The one thing he knew for sure was that there was no such thing as the perfect coverup.There werealwaysbreadcrumbs, he just had to follow them. They never video called, which was fine. In a way, he loved the mystery. Their constant communication was platonic, but that didn’t stop Keys’ heart from racing every time he saw a new message from her.
White: You’re enjoying this way too much.
Black: I know. Now choose: truth or dare?
Keys made a face she couldn’t see. Pawns were worth a single truth or dare choice. It wasn’t until minor or major pieces were taken that things got more complicated, but for now, he had a choice. He just didn’t know which to choose. In the past games that he’d lost, he’d chosen one truth and one dare.
The truth she’d asked of him had been to reveal the most embarrassing thing that happened to him on a date. Which hadsucked. Because how pathetic was he that he’d never even beenona date. Twenty-four years old, a virgin, and only been kissed by one woman. Thankfully, or unthankfully based on which way he could choose to look at it, he did have one story that he could play off without revealing that it hadn’t actually been a date.
At fifteen, he’d gone to college after gaining emancipation from his parents. It had been a very specific and special case, as most judges won’t even look at emancipation cases until the teen was at least sixteen. But for young Keys, he’d had to prove that emancipation was in his best interest to separate from his military father and overprotective mother, which he had.
Going to MIT had been incredible. But despite his genius and proving to the courts that he had the capabilities to take care of himself, Keys had still been a kid. A kid who needed maturing. Looking back on it, it could have been worse. Hell, college was full of adults who needed to grow up. That was part of the college experience. At seventeen, Keys allowed himself to be talked into hacking into the Pentagon to impress a pretty girl.
Anura. He still dreamed of her eyes sometimes, her laugh as she played with his hair, the way her nipples poked through every shirt she wore—and the sight of her going down on her knees in front of him just before a horde of police, including the FBI, NCIS, NSA, DCIS, and CISA, came barging through the door to arrest him.
It took over an hour for her to send the seemingly endless amount of hysterical laughter GIFs, emojis, and memes before she calmed down enough to ask him some questions. But at least she never questioned whether or not Keys had been on an actual date when that occurred.
His one and only experience with a woman had ended with him in handcuffs—and not the fun kind of handcuffs.
Pathetic.
So on his next defeat, he chose a dare. She’d also chosen dares when she’d lost her two games, but Keys’ dares had been more hilarious than embarrassing. He’d dared her to dye her hair and send him a picture of just the top of her head, and to drink only water for seventy-two hours. Since both of them practically lived off caffeine, she’d declared revenge.
He should have taken her more seriously.
In the dead of night, when the entire club was asleep, she’d dared Keys to streak from one end of the club’s property to the other. After informing her of the terrain, she did allow him to wear sneakers.
But that was it.
