Page 1

Chapter One - Davina

The notification pulses in the corner of my screen—a client flagging a permissions conflict in their financial dashboard. It’s routine. Boring, even. I could fix it in my sleep, which is probably why I’ve been staring at the same line of code for three minutes with a dead-eyed stare.

I blink. Refocus.

My office is quiet in that way it only gets at six in the evening, when most of the team has already left and the building settles into itself. I keep the lights low on purpose. The glow of three monitors is enough; anything brighter feels like an interruption.

The code resolves itself in my head before my fingers catch up. Two quick keystrokes and the conflict disappears. I lean back in my chair and reach for the coffee that went cold an hour ago.

“You’re doing it again.”

I glance toward the door. Sienna stands in the frame, one hand on her hip, the other holding a takeout bag that smells like Thai food. She’s wearing a silk blouse in dusty rose and wide-leg trousers. Her hair falls in soft waves around her shoulders, and she looks like she just stepped out of a magazine spread about young professionals.

“Doing what?”

“You’ve forgotten about dinner again.”

I check the time: 6:47 p.m. She’s not wrong.

“I ate,” I say.

“When?”

I try to remember. There was coffee. The coffee doesn’t count, and we both know it.

Sienna crosses the office and sets the bag on my desk, moving a stack of compliance reports to make room. She’s been doing this since we were in college, showing up with food, rearranging my priorities, and making sure I don’t disappear into my own head for too long. She’s my sounding board, the person who reminds me that the world outside servers and firewalls still exists.

“Eat,” she says. It’s not a suggestion.

I open the container. It’s pad thai with extra lime, no bean sprouts. She remembers things like that.

“Big day?” she asks, settling into the chair across from my desk. She pulls her legs underneath her and reaches for one of the spring rolls.

“Routine audit for Henderson Financial. They want their penetration testing documentation updated before their board meeting next week.”

“Penetration testing.” She grins. “You make it sound so clinical.”

“It is clinical.”

“You’re breaking into their systems on purpose to show them how bad their security is.”

“Ethically.”

“Right. Ethically.” She waves the spring roll. “Very legal, very above-board, very—”

“Very necessary if they want to pass their compliance review.” I take a bite of the pad thai and let myself relax for the first time in hours. “Most of these places think their firewalls are enough. They’re not. Half the time I can get through their employee portal in under an hour using social engineering alone.”

“That’s terrifying, Dav.”

“It’s reality.” I shrug. “Better I find the holes than someone who actually wants to hurt them.”

Sienna studies me for a moment, her hazel eyes warm but observant. She’s like that—always watching and reading people in a way that makes her terrifyingly good at her own job.

Sienna handles the fundraising and public-facing side of things for my company. I build the systems. She sells them. It works because she understands people and I understand code, and neither of us tries to do the other’s job.

“Speaking of which,” she says, “you have a meeting tomorrow morning.”

“I know.”