Page 50 of The Southern Submission

Unknown: A pathetic whore like you would get on your knees for any rich man who showed you the slightest interest and promised you a story. What’s he offered to make it worth it? Answer me, you filthy piece of trash. That Olsen fucker is a shit stain on the world and you need to stay the hell away from him.

The more I read, the hotter my temper grows, and it takes everything to keep from hurling the phone on the ground. I'm the calm, collected one of my brothers. I don’t usually have a temper, and I certainly don't rise to insults or let anyone get under my skin these days. This isn’t even directed at me. It wassent to Ainsley, and I want to beat the shit out of Archer for thinking he has any right to send even one word of the text to her. How the fuck dare he? If he has a problem with me, he should man up and come to me with it, not continue to send her nasty texts, trying to get her to stay away from me.

I turn her phone on silent and pocket it so she doesn’t have to deal with the asshole any longer. I don’t want him to take her peace away or put a damper on our time together. I turn and see her worried look as she searches my face.

“Let me take care of those texts. I hate that you’re reading even a single word of that nasty fucker’s vitriol, and if you let me, I’ll install a program that will route any unknown numbers directly to my phone so I can track and deal with him in my own way.”

Her face falls, suspicion darkening her golden features. “You have a program that would route things from my phone to yours? Sounds like something I’ve been through before.”

Of course she’d be hesitant to let me do anything with her phone after Archer showed her the worst a partner could do to her with his jealousy and manipulation, tracking her phone and controlling her. I take her hand and start toward the marina again. It’s time I shared just how connected our paths are.

“You remember the Olympus cyber breach last winter?” I ask.

“Of course,” she answers, sounding puzzled.

“I have good reason to believe Archer Donovan was the hacker behind the attack. I’ve been looking for a way to tie him to the breach. I reverse-engineered the program he used to get into the Olympus servers, but it hasn’t helped. He’s good, and I hate to admit that because it means he got through the system I designed without leaving a trace other than a signature in his code that alluded to a bow and arrow, for Archer, I guess,because he’s an arrogant fucker,” I mutter. “This aligned with information we received a week after the attack. I’ve hated the slimy weasel for what he did to my company—getting into our systems, stealing proprietary information and plans for the Pegasus project, selling them on the dark web, and allowing our competitors to take the jet engine to market before we could, which cost us millions—but now that he’s harassing you, I want to fucking kill him.”

I run a hand through my hair, flustered by the uncharacteristic anger and emotions to protect what’s mine. I feel more like my brothers than I ever have before, and I finally get it. I have something in my life that I would go to war for, and it’s a fucking fake girlfriend who smells like vanilla and coffee and fits in my arms like she was made for me. Ainsley is more than a plaything or a means to an end to avoid Harlowe’s matchmaking. She’s someone I want to take care of, to protect from assholes like Archer, and to repair the damage he’s done to her heart. She’s someone I want to…love.

Ainsley’s eyes are huge, her lips parted in shock as she processes all I’ve told her as we approach the marina where the tender boat is docked. “Archer was the hacker,” she says, shaking her head as her brows draw together. “And you need proof that the code was his.”

“Yes. Apparently, he’s a hacker for hire and does this shit all the time but hasn’t been caught, so his signature is known, but he doesn’t take credit for it, and it can’t be linked to him directly. It’s fucking infuriating to have the information offhand but not be able to link it concretely. I can’t take hearsay to the authorities, and it wouldn’t stand in court either way.”

She looks away, staring out over the choppy water of the marina as I help her into the boat. She takes a seat next to mine while I unhook ropes and push the boat away from the dock,before starting the engine and navigating us out of the marina.

“I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Archer’s wrath and destruction,” she says, finally meeting my eyes. I swear there’s guilt clouding her hazel depths, but I can’t pinpoint why she’d feel guilty about Archer now. Maybe she feels bad that he’s texting because of the Haute List stories about us. “You can put the program on my phone if that will help you.”

“Who knows if it will get me any closer to connecting him to the cyber attack, but it’ll make me feel better that he’s not harassing you anymore. I’ll monitor how often he’s messaging you and what he’s saying, and I’ll fuck with him a bit to see if he likes a taste of his own medicine.”

He might not like the hateful messages when he’s on the receiving end of things, and I can be just as persistent as he seems to be. He’ll be getting some very special messages from me just as soon as I fix Ainsley’s phone.

We stow the tender boat on the yacht with help from Eamon and Brockway, and I follow Ainsley into our cabin, feeling her subdued mood. Archer Donovan is more than a nuisance. He’s also a cockblocker, and I’m adding that to the list of reasons I hate him. I’m going to fix this texting issue first.

I grab my laptop from my work bag, pull out a cable, and connect her phone directly to it as I settle at the table in our room and get to work. Ainsley takes a seat next to me and watches over my shoulder, probably to ensure I don’t fuck with her phone any more than I’ve said I will. She doesn’t even have to put in her passcode for this to work, so I pull up a program I created called Delphi and see every unknown number that has texted her recently.

Archer’s been a busy boy, and he’s been heinous with his treatment. Every one of his messages has been disgusting. Howhas she managed to go on with her day like nothing’s happening, smiling, enjoying the tourist crap we’ve done, entertaining my whims, and playing up this fake dating shit, when all along she was getting these nasty messages? She’s a stronger woman than I knew. I’m so fucking impressed by her.

I grab my phone and see all the numbers now in my inbox. I pull up another program I’ve created called Theseus that can work for this purpose and initiate a spam system, adding all those numbers to the registry. I quickly type in a handful of horrible messages of my own that should give him a sample of what I want to start him out with and then get creative with even more. I want him to need a shower because his soul feels dirty after he reads these. I let the program AI learn from my messages and set it to produce more messages and additional sending numbers as needed when he inevitably blocks the first before I close out my side of the program so it can run without my assistance. I disconnect the phone and hand it back to her.

“It’s done, and you shouldn’t get anything more from him. I’ll take care of this.”

“You’re really an evil genius, aren’t you?” she says warily, having just witnessed a side of me most don’t get to see.

I gave up my hacker days in college, and haven’t been this vindictive for about as long. I learned that carrying a chip on my shoulder or always one-upping others didn’t make me feel any better, for the most part. Carrying that weight around just made me feel heavier, whereas I could let it go and allow people to sort themselves out in their own time without my interference and it would serve just as well.

However, in some cases, I’m willing to turn to my old ways and take the situation into my own hands to make sure it’s dealt with efficiently without waiting for karma or fate to get around to it. This is justified vigilantism.

“You could say that. He more than deserves it.” I sigh when I see she hasn’t softened at my explanation and probably still thinks I’m just as bad as her manipulative ex. “Believe it or not, I was bullied a lot growing up. I wasn’t always six-two and full of lean muscle. I was your height and nerdy as hell until I was fifteen. Hayes was always huge, Zander was always hot, and I was always too smart for my own good. Kids are cruel, and when my brothers weren’t around, I got shoved into lockers, beaten up, called names, and picked on. I hated it. So I got back at people the only way I knew how. I outsmarted them every chance I could and I had to get creative. I hacked into the school servers to change test grades that caused my bullies to fail classes, made school-wide automated announcements calling John Williams a micro dick panty sniffer, and even revoked college admissions from a few of the worst offenders. That one nearly cost me my spot at MIT, but I somehow got through it on school probation. I was a mean little shithead and angry at the world, but I fucking hate bullies. I’ll do anything to make sure a bully is put in their place, and that’s what I’m doing with Archer Donovan.”

“Wow, you’re also a vindictive tech genius.” The wary expression finally leaves her pretty face. “I’m sorry I ruined our afternoon with my ex drama. I hate that he’s still controlling what happens in my life years later. He shouldn’t be able to do that. It makes me sick.”

I gather her up into my arms and walk her over to the bed, placing her sideways on my lap so I can take her shoes and socks off.

“Consider Archer Donovan handled and you won’t have to hear from him ever again.” I kiss her temple. “And he can’t ruin anything for us. There are no expectations for this, Muffin. If you want to take a nap, watch a movie, swim, or spend timealone, that’s what you get to do. It doesn’t matter what we talked about before. You have the power for what happens now, got it?”

She turns and straddles my lap, putting her arms around my neck. “I was so ready, and then he had to go and cockblock us and it’s frustrating. It feels like there’s a malevolent presence in the room and my thoughts are racing now instead of enjoying what I was looking forward to.”

“Sounds like I need to get you out of your head and make you forget about any other man but me.”

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