Page 41 of Hacker Unknown

Hearing the words ‘stage four’ made it sink in how sick I really was. The coughing up blood and the fatigue should have been my clue, but hearing it spoken out loud made me realize it was all going to end soon.

Chapter 13

Sonali

“Can one of you please give me a good reason why you need to keep coming to my appointments?” Paolo asked, his tone clipped as he waved his one arm in the air. Currently, Paolo, Kat, Antonio, CJ, and I were in a private room of Sawyer’s medical research company.

“Because I don’t trust you won’t skip. So, until your ass is no longer sick, I will continue to show up at every single one of your appointments,” Antonio countered.

When we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale, Paolo accepted Sawyer’s help to try an experimental treatment. It was confirmed he did have stage four cancer. Twice a week, he went to the facility for treatment. It wasn’t chemo, but an experimental cocktail. I’d tried to talk to him about seeing if we could use my blood, and he shot me down each time.

His last reasoning was that he claimed to care too much to put me through any pain. Besides, if he did do it, too many people knew he had cancer, and a miracle cure could put me at risk.

Paolo pointed at CJ and Kat. “Then why the extra people today?”

Kat walked across the room and lowered herself onto Antonio’s lap. He was in one of the guest chairs to Paolo’s right. CJ had used the small table in the room setting up his laptop and portable monitor. I took the chair on the other side of Paolo, next to the machine reading his vitals.

“One second.” CJ leaned over, grabbed his backpack from the floor, and pulled out a small black device. His finger tapped the top. “Okay, you can talk now.”

Before meeting Paolo, I didn’t know much about security or tech. But over the last few weeks, I’d gone into the office with him. He’d claimed he didn’t think it was safe for me at home. Kat had let me use a small corner conference room with a lot of windows to paint in. I wanted to point out I wouldn’t have security when I went back to Paris, which was only in a couple of days.

We both had been avoiding the subject of what would happen next. If I was honest with myself, I’d fallen deep in love with Paolo, but we both agreed to one month, and I had to head to Paris for my show.

“Wait. Won’t that mess with the equipment?” Paolo asked.

CJ glanced up from his laptop. “From the scan of the facility’s network I just did, nothing will be interfered with.”

Sawyer had come in a couple of times while Paolo had his treatment and sat with us. He was back in town for a charity event this week, and we had plans for dinner tomorrow. “I’m surprised Sawyer gave you access to the network.”

Kat shook her head. “No way would your brother give us access. He’s very protective of whatever he has going on here. That is thereason we brought CJ with us and blocked the room, so nobody can listen to our conversation.”

Paolo rubbed his forehead. “Mission? Is Sawyer doing something we need to investigate?”

Antonio sighed. “Any time a billionaire has a research facility, we should worry. Don’t get me wrong, the treatments his company has produced are groundbreaking. Many of them, I think, are tied to Sonali’s mother’s work. Which brings me back to what was really in that container.”

“You think Sawyer lied to me?”

“I ran my facial recognition program over Fort Lauderdale near this facility and his facility in Houston. From digging deeper, he has three other shell companies tied to medical research. I also ran it near those buildings. No scan came back as your mother,” CJ said.

Kat climbed off Antonio’s lap and paced back and forth. “But the program doesn’t pick up if the person had gone through plastic surgery.”

“True, love. But tell me this—if you disconnected from your kids for years and they knew you were alive, would you still stay contactless?”

“Fuck no. Plus, we have ways to counter anything. I would at the very least talk to them on the phone.”

A pang slashed through my chest. This was a mission to them, but to me they were talking like my mother might be dead. Paolo reached out and grabbed my hand.

“We can speculate all we want. Until we find evidence he lied, or we’re given a reason not to believe him, I think we should trust him,” Paolo said.

I squeezed Paolo’s hand. “I know they are working on the mission. And what Kat said is true: a normal parent would reach out to their kids. My mom did love me, but she was brilliant; her work, to her, was equivalent to her firstborn. At the age of eight, I thought I only mattered to her, but looking back, I can see how she chose her research over me.”

Kat tapped her foot on the floor. “Paolo is correct; we don’t know for sure. As for Sawyer, he broke the truce we had in the game, so I don’t trust him.”

The damn game was consuming. Paolo refused to play, but he constantly looked over my shoulder to see the gossip on the main chat. Sometimes he would tell me what I should write. Half the time, I handed him my phone so he could chime in. But the betrayal Kat was talking about was Jared Black and Brock from Blackwood Mercenaries, who was in our alliance. Jared was in Sawyer’s alliance. They were bickering in world chat about being better than the other, and Brock attacked during the truce. It led to Sawyer and a bunch of others attacking.

Antonio chuckled under his breath. “Love, you can’t judge someone by the way they play an online game. We need solid evidence against him. Jared swears that Sawyer is a good man. Personally, I think Sawyer is, but I also think he is keeping something from us.”

“How did the meeting with the CIA go today when you told them our research led to nothing?” Paolo asked.

---