Page 194 of Matteo

“You’re the head of cybersecurity? I’d expect nothing less.”

“Phew.” He wipes his brow, with an exaggerated motion. “And ... based on Alex’s intel, I started to wonder if maybe you'd been a hacker too.”

“What was his intel?”

“That Vlad was caught in some sort of cybercrime investigation, years ago.”

“Why didn't you just ask me?”

He scoffs. “Would you have told me? No. You wouldn’t have. You were always so vague in your answers, Elizabeth. Always so evasive.”

I hang my head in shame and regret. When I look up, he's watching me carefully. There’s no judgment, or irritation in his expression.

I scratch my neck. “I-I wanted to tell you, but I ... just ... couldn't.”

“But why?” I hear the desperation in his voice. “We were so ... so good together. We were so close. I felt like I could tell you anything.”

He's making me feel even worse about myself. “I-I was scared that if I told you, you might feel obligated to tell your father, and then he'd fire me. And that’s what I was the most scared of. I couldn’t afford to lose this contract.”

“My father doesn’t know?” He sounds surprised.

“No,” I cry, surprised by his question. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have hired me.”

Matteo looks like he’s thinking about something, trying to figure out a puzzle.

He deserves to know why I stayed quiet. “I was vague about Vlad because talking about him meant talking about all of it.”

“About what?” he asks softly.

“When I aged out of foster care, I was angry, broke and lonely. I spent most of my time online. Vlad found me through a coding forum. At first it was just programming and security discussions. Then he introduced me to a group.”

“A hacking group.”

“Yes … we thought we were exposing bad people. Corrupt corporations. Wealthy people who buried things they didn't want the public to know about. We told ourselves we were doing the right thing. But we weren't, now that I look back on it. We hacked systems we had no business touching. Some people in the group pushed things too far.”

Matteo doesn't interrupt.

“One operation went wrong. Someone made a mistake and left clues behind. Once the authorities found one thread, they kept pulling until the whole thing unraveled. Vlad took the fall for most of it, but they questioned all of us. The courts concluded that we, the rest of us in the group, were just following Vlad and doing what he said. He positioned himself as the principal operator, the strategist, and the one who planned everything. He made it clear that people like me, Takumi, and the others, were inexperienced hangers on. We were also so much younger. Even though I got off lightly, the investigators still hauled me in and interrogated me aggressively, like I was a criminal. I was terrified and felt powerless.”

The memory makes my stomach twist.

“I was interrogated for hours,” I whisper, my stomach feeling like it's full of acid. I take a few steadying breaths.

His eyes sharpen. “And that's why you hate enclosed spaces.”

I nod.

He remembers.

He always listens and remembers.

It's one of the things I love about him; how he was in the elevator with me, how he helped me through the panic attack, the way he'd held me while I struggled to breathe.

“Yes.”

My voice comes out quieter than I intend.

“The room was small. Windowless. They kept coming back with the same questions, over and over again. I was terrified. After that, I couldn't stand being trapped in small spaces. While Vlad protected me and the others, it also reminded me how dangerous that whole world is, and I knew I had to change things.”