Page 1 of Hacker Revelation

1

Antonio

“Mommy… can’t… breathe,” Antonio Jr. choked out. Kat had her arms wrapped tight around his little body, and tears streamed down her face. When Kat didn’t loosen her hold, I bent down next to her and placed my hand on her back. Her eyes shifted toward me, and she mouthed, “Thank you.”

Kat needed to learn that I would do anything for her and our son.

“Kitty Kat, can I get a hug from our son?” She nodded and slowly released him. Ant jumped into my arms, and it took everything in me to hold back my tears. When the school had called earlier to inform us that they couldn’t find Ant, fear had coursed through my body. I was feeling the effect of the unused adrenaline now that Ant had been found.

I pulled back and stared down at my son. He wore aCarsT-shirt that matched his blue shorts, and his little lip quivered. “Did I do something wrong, Daddy?”

But I couldn’t answer him. I still didn’t know why Ant had hidden in the janitor’s closet.

“Can we move this to my conference room? The afternoon bell will ring soon,” Principal Anderson said.

I nodded.

Principal Anderson was in her early thirties. Her mouse-brown hair was in a bun, and black-framed glasses sat low on her nose. Her six-inch heels added height to her small frame. She was pretty but bland compared to my firecracker of a wife.

Ant put one tiny hand in mine and grabbed Kat’s with the other. I met Kat’s eyes over Ant, and she gave me a watery smile. We followed Principal Anderson as her high heels clicked across the white floor.

A memory flashed through my brain of the last time I had been ordered to the principal’s office. I was in middle school, and Asher thought it would be funny if we replaced the science teacher’s dead frogs with live ones. When the teacher opened the pail of frogs to hand them out to students for dissection, they all escaped. We got expelled from school for a week, and Mom made us help the house cleaner the whole time.

Principal Anderson opened the door that led to her conference room. She sat down at the child-size table. I eyed the table and tried to figure out how I would fold my six-foot-three frame into a two-foot chair. Kat and Ant grabbed the two red seats and sat with ease, leaving a yellow chair for me. I decided not to burden the tiny chair and leaned against the wall instead.

In a soft voice, Principal Anderson asked, “Antonio, can you explain to your parents and me why you hid from your teachers today?”

Ant swung his eyes in my direction, seeking my okay. I nodded.

“Daddy said if I saw Uncle Juan, I was supposed to hide.” Ant picked up the crayon on the table and started to draw on the piece of paper in front of him.

Kat let out a gasp, then she pulled the piece of paper away from Ant to get his full attention. “Are you sure it was Uncle Juan? Sometimes we make mistakes and think we see something we didn’t.”

I believed Ant. I took my phone from my pocket and sent Asher a text to have someone pull all the video feed from around the school. Asher was my twin brother and co-owner of our security firm, AA Security. Earlier in the day, we had been under the impression that Juan Sanchez, Ant’s uncle, had planted a bomb in Kat’s sister’s car. SWAT had spent the morning defusing the bomb.

“Duh, Mom. I know who Uncle Juan is.”

Kat sent me a worried look.

I bent down to Ant’s level. “Can you tell me specifically what happened?”

Ant let out an aggravated sigh. “Kurt and I were playing ball. When Kurt threw the ball wide, it went by the fence. Uncle Juan was at the fence, but he couldn’t get in. He told me that Aunt Sophie was in the hospital, and I needed to go with him. But I knew he was lying. If Aunt Sophie were hurt, you would come get me. So I did what you said, Dad. You told me if I ever saw Uncle Juan, I should hide, and you would find me. Did I do good?”

I scooped Ant into my arms and pressed a kiss against his head. “You did perfect.” I sat Ant back in his chair next to his mom.

“Can I have ice cream, then?”

Everyone let out a chuckle at Ant’s question. It helped relieve some of the tension in the room.

Principal Anderson cleared her throat. She had a No. 2 pencil in her hand, and she had taken notes on everything that was said. “Are the other kids in danger? This Juan character—is he bad news?”

How could I explain that the man after my family was the corrupt former director of the CIA? He was the number-one most-wanted terrorists in the world, with a $25 million reward for his capture. The number-two most-wanted terrorist was the leader of Al Qaeda.

“I think it would be better if we pull—”

Ant cut off my words with his own. “I want to stay here.” His lip quivered.

I lowered myself to Ant’s height. His steely gray eyes gazed back at me. No matter how many times I had looked at Ant in the last few weeks, it punched me in the gut every time I realized how much he looked like me.

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