Page 39 of Hacker Beloved

Asher and I were alone with Zayla. “I’m going to go grab the stuff I need for the RF blocker.”

“I don’t want you to leave me.”

I placed a quick kiss on her lips. “The sooner we get this done, we can go back to the hotel and hold each other.”

Asher grabbed my hand before I could move. “Come here.”

I leaned forward over Zayla and kissed Asher before he released my hand. My mind raced as I headed to the nurses’ station. Kat and Antonio had taken the van with all my tech. I hoped security had what I needed to create the device. My stomach turned, thinking about the fact that if the device broke on its way-out, poison could also be inside.

15

ZAYLA

The hotel TVflickered from across the room. I sat on the center cushion of the couch with my feet tucked up underneath me and a bottle of water in my hand. CJ had his laptop propped open on his lap on the couch next to me. Asher paced outside on the balcony with his phone pressed to his ear. I tried to focus on television, but I couldn’t stop the dreaded feeling in the pit of my stomach. Neither Asher nor CJ had touched me since we came home from the hospital. Two days passed. The first night, they tucked me into bed and said they had work to catch up on. They didn’t cuddle in bed with me like they promised at the hospital. I woke up and found them both asleep in the living room. CJ was on the couch, and Asher was on the floor. I hated how we’d gone from a night of passion to them feeling miles away.

I should have realized our relationship wouldn’t work. I rubbed my eyes to stop the tears that threatened to run down my cheeks. Dr. Lynn confirmed the IUD had two chambers. She was digging into what the second drug was. On the way home from the hospital, CJ explained how the person grabbed the stuff from the bank floor. Everything was gone.

The killer hadn’t sent me any more texts, and I wondered if one would come. Antonio had reported that they found the missing children locked away in a warehouse unharmed.

Asher slid the patio door open and stepped inside. “The Orange team is getting pulled for a mission. Antonio and Kat will need to head back to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow.”

“Orange team?” I asked.

“Since the company keeps growing, we’ve divided our employees into teams. The Orange team deals with our missions in South America.” Asher explained as he joined us on the couch.

I turned my attention back to the screen, but my thoughts returned to the fact that my days with Asher and CJ felt numbered. CJ hadn’t said a word for the last few hours to me, even though he was a foot away. I blinked to stop a tear that tried to escape, but I was too late. It trickled down my cheek. When I reached to wipe it away, Asher caught my arm, and his thumb brushed down my cheek.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

CJ glanced up from his laptop for the first time, his eyebrow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Zayla’s crying,” Asher replied.

I tried to stand. But they both reached out and held me in place. My emotions were like a roller coaster at Six Flags. “Nothing.”

CJ winced. “Asher doesn’t like that word. It can lead to spankings, which leads to sex. So...”

Asher huffed, “Don’t listen to him. Is this about what happened to you? I know sometimes shock takes a few days to set in. We can have a therapist here within an hour. What happened to you is traumatizing.”

“I don’t need a therapist over the fact I was knocked out.”

Asher reached forward to grab my hand, but pulled back. I couldn’t stop the second tear that fell. He didn’t even want to touch me, and I didn’t understand what changed.

“You weren’t just knocked out. You were violated. That is something huge, and you need to talk about it,” Asher said. “

My eyes widened as I swallowed hard. “Is that why you guys are standoffish with me?”

CJ ran a hand over his face. “Finding out someone manipulated you to change your IUD and planted a device inside you is concerning especially for your mental health. Taking it a step further, that person also violated your private area. I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around you and hold you tight, but that is me being selfish.”

I reached out and grabbed each of their hands. “I thought after everything that happened yesterday…you didn’t want me anymore. As for a therapist, I have one, and I’ll reach out to her. I don’t think what that person did has set in yet. But I know you aren’t him or her.”

“Fuck,” Asher said. “Zayla, we can’t read your mind. CJ and I talked the last two nights about how amazing you’ve handled yourself. We are both falling for you, hard. But you also need to understand us. If you decide to stay with us. We tend to get tunnel vision when we are in the middle of a case. We both want this person locked up, so our focus has been on the case. I get lost in the coordination and work, and CJ can get lost in his cyber world. There are times I’ve left for work in the field and come back seven hours later, and he hasn’t moved or eaten. When you see us doing that, call our assess out because we might not realize it.”

“Hey, I only worked for a couple of hours today.” CJ retorted.

I squeezed his hand. “For the last six hours, you clicked away on the computer and haven’t said a word. Asher took call after call and went over to Kat’s room a few times.”

CJ grabbed his phone and his eyes widened. “Well, shit. Aaron got me in contact with a well-known video editor in California. We are close to cracking the video.”

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