Page 46 of Undercover Hacker

He was in DC. If I hadn’t pushed him away, he would have been here, and I would have gotten to kiss him goodbye. Instead, I was going to blow up in a fucking car.

“No, it won’t work.” I heard a growl come from the line. “They put a bomb in my car, and it is ticking.”

A stream of cuss words blasted across the phone line. “Where are you?”

“At work.” The ticking was wearing on my nerves. I couldn’t see a countdown anywhere, I just heard a steady ticking noise.

“I’m on my way. Let me call Brock and Antonio. We will be there shortly. Hold on!”

DC was a few hours away by plane. He wouldn’t make in time. “If I don’t make it, I’m sorry, Zane. I love you.”

“You will make it, Red. I love you. Hold on. I will call you right back.”

The phone went silent. I was left with my thoughts about how I had pushed away from the man I loved. Losing my baby would be devastating.

* * *

Zane

It had been hard to be away from Sophie for the past three weeks. Antonio gave me a report each day about how she was depressed and sick. But I promised my brother I would help find the rogue agents.

For the past three weeks, I had been going to charity events and working the halls of Langley to take down all the dirty politicians and agents. The women I’d taken as dates were trusted agents helping me with my case. As of yesterday, we had the information we needed to take down the last dirty politician on the list.

We could never clean up Washington completely. But, we had made a large dent. After the arrests were made, I jumped on the first flight to Ft. Lauderdale. When I landed, I wanted to knock on Sophie's door and demand she listen. But, it had been three o’clock in the morning, and Antonio’s words about her being sick ran through my head.

I had planned to surprise her at home the next evening. I had sweet-talked her landlord into letting me in. At first, Betty was suspicious. But when I told her my plan, she gave me access. I was going to cook Sophie a romantic dinner and demand we be together.

I had been baking a caramel cake when my phone vibrated in my pocket. At the sight of Sophie’s name on my phone,hope filtered through my mind.

Hope turned to dread when Sophie mentioned the ticking noise coming from her seat. Brock had a bomb expert on his team. John was known for being able to dismantle anything. Ft. Lauderdale police called on him from time to time to help when they were dealing with bombs, and he taught classes on explosives for the FBI and CIA.

I clicked Brock’s name in my contact list, and he answered immediately.

“How’s the cooking going?”

Over the past few days, Brock and I had been talking. He had been helping me come up with a plan for winning Sophie back. The woman would have to learn that I loved her no matter what.

“Sophie called. She got in her car, sat down, heard a click, and now something is ticking. I need you to send John there right away.”

A long pause on the other side had me thinking the phone was disconnected. “John is out of the country on assignment. I’ll meet you there. We can FaceTime him, and he can walk us through this.”

I made it to White Hat Security’s parking lot in record time. I could see Sophie in her black sports car. She was talking to herself, and tears were streaming down her face. When her eyes landed on me, there was a look of shock.

“Hey, Red.” When I leaned in to kiss her forehead, I could hear the ticking noise coming from inside the car.

“You came.” She tried to smile through her watery tears.

Needing to see what we were dealing with, I squatted down to see under Sophie’s seat. A timing device was attached to enough C-4 to blow up the parking lot. The timer was counting down, and we didn’t have much time left. It had hit the five-minute mark.

The running footsteps behind me were an indicator that Brock and Antonio had made it.

“How long?” Brock demanded.

Getting up so Brock could take a look, I said, “Five minutes.”

Sophie gasped. “You all need to leave. Get everyone out of here”

No one would leave her to deal with a bomb strapped to her seat. Brock was pointing his phone under the seat so John could take a look.

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