Page 31 of Hacker Revelation

“Yes, Sophie and Zane got into an accident, but Sophie didn’t die in the crash. When the paramedics came, Zane decided to fake Sophie’s death and send her to a safe house. He couldn’t handle her being in harm's way again. I’m sorry I lied to you, Kitty Kat. It ripped me apart to see you cry. But Juan was watching.”

I didn’t have time to ask more questions, and I didn’t know how I felt about Antonio lying to me. Asher, CJ, Neal, and Daisy came into the office. Asher's face was red with anger.

“That fucker had a helicopter!” Asher yelled. CJ had taken a seat at Mr. Ross’s desk, and his fingers were flying across the keyboard of the laptop.

I felt as though it was all too much to take in, and I wanted to see Sophie. I needed to see her with my own eyes.

“I want to see Sophie now,” I said to the room.

Antonio frowned. “Kat, she’s at a safe house.”

“I don’t care if she’s on the fucking moon. I want to see her now.”

I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to forgive Antonio for playing off my biggest fear.

12

Kat

I looked around Sophie’s room in the safe house. Zane had whisked Sophie away to one of the numerous houses he owned under different shell companies. It wasn’t the largest home he owned, but it wasn’t your house next door.

The house had to be close to six thousand square feet and sat on ten acres. When I walked up the marble-tiled grand staircase to Sophie’s room, I passed a surveillance room most techies would drool over. Every square inch of the property was under surveillance. Zane had lasers programmed to detect the slightest vibration in the ground.

Three men I had never seen before manned the computers in the surveillance room. Zane and Antonio sat at the conference room table in the room, going over Juan’s last move.

Of course, even with all the technology in the world, no one could make the worry in my stomach go away. I thought I had lost my sister again. It had been three days since she and Zane had been run off the road and Antonio had told me she died. Deep down, I understood why Zane and Antonio decided to lie to me, but that didn’t mean I agreed with them. Antonio hadn’t needed to listen to Zane when he asked Antonio to fake Sophie’s death. He could’ve told me something else that would’ve made me cry and put on a scene.

As I walked across the plush carpet, Sophie's head turned from the TV mounted on the wall in the bedroom. “When are you going to forgive him?” she asked. Wow. No “Hi” or “How are you doing?” Just straight to the point.

I reached the king-size bed and sat next to Sophie. “Sophie… I don’t know. Those two made a choice that devastated me. They told me you died. Could you forgive Zane if he told you I died to put on a show?”

Her frown deepened, and she leaned over to grab a pint of ice cream she had been eating. “I was in on the decision. Are you angry with me?” Sophie had a cut under her eye from when the glass shattered in the accident. Her movements were stiff from the seatbelt bruise.

I took a second to think about it before answering. “I should be, but I was so happy you were alive that I didn’t care. It hurts that the people I love most can wound me like that. He could’ve told me someone else had died to make me cry. Fuck, Sophie, I thought I had lost you and that Juan was coming for everyone I care about.”

“I’m sorry.” Sophie let out a sniffle. “We weren’t thinking about what it would do to you. Zane and I looked at it as a way to get something over on Juan. Did you see Zane’s black eye?”

It was the first thing I’d noticed when Zane answered the door. “Was that from the accident?”

Sophie flipped through a few more channels before landing on an old episode ofHouse Flippers. “No. Antonio punched him when he showed up to work yesterday. He said that was for upsetting his wife. Have you looked at your husband? He looks like someone killed his puppy, ran it over, and set it on fire.”

What she said was true. Antonio had tried everything to make me speak to him. Being angry with Antonio was hard, and I missed his touch. Without Antonio by my side, I tossed and turned all night, wishing Antonio had his arms wrapped around me, letting me know everything would work out. His touch helped soothe the anxiety that coursed through my body.

If anything, the incident with Zane and Sophie should have made me want to be around Antonio more. I could lose him any day.

I had gone years with no close family around. My sixteenth birthday was the last time Juan and I had spent a holiday together. He took me to a nice restaurant and informed me that I would be moving to a new school. I was devastated to learn I was going to have to leave the life I was used to.

A limousine picked us up from the restaurant, and in the back sat two of my suitcases. I recognized them the second I got in the car. Juan directed the driver in the opposite direction of his mansion in Dulles, Virginia. The car took us to a remote airstrip. Juan didn’t even exit the car. Two men in black suits opened the door and asked me to step out. That was the last time I saw my uncle for two years.

The men led me to a helicopter as tears streamed down my face. I didn’t understand what was happening. Later, I learned “the Farm” at the CIA’s Camp Peary was to be my new home. Camp Peary got the name “the Farm” during World War II when the War Department commandeered a few farms to make a facility to train officers.

It should’ve been called Camp Hell. The CIA used it to develop the next generation of agents. The first year, when I was sixteen, I learned to speak Madarin and Arabic. Instructors at the farm taught me how to pick locks and change my identity. That was the year I homed in on my sniper skills. Even though I was the youngest agent, I had the best shot.

In my second year, everything changed. I was taught how to withstand torture. One of the training exercises I would never forget was called “stress position.” My instructor handcuffed my feet to an eye bolt in the floor and my hands above my head. They made me hold the position for over forty hours. When I was released, I collapsed to the ground from muscle failure. I went through things no sixteen-year-old should ever have to see or endure.

Sophie pushed me to get my attention. I had been so lost in remembering that dreadful time that I hadn’t heard anything she was saying. “Sorry. I was lost in the past.”

“You know, we’ve never really talked about what you had to go through. The stories about when you were an assassin are interesting, but what was it like when you were younger?”

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