Page 4 of Hidden Ties

“Oh … it’s not too bad, but the Nutty Buddies definitely don’t taste the same. But I refuse to give up my MoonPies.”

Looking over the edge of her computer, she saw a tiny sports car pull into her neighbor’s driveway. “My neighbor’s date is here, right on time.”

“Damn, Valk, you were right on the nose.” He cleared his throat before continuing curiously. “What does she look like?”

She took a vicious bite from her MoonPie, some crumbs spewing out with each descriptive word. “Blonde, big boobs, and looks like she came out of a centerfold. Dude is more predictable than the news. He only stays in his house for one weekend every other week, gets laid, and then disappears into thin air for another week.”

As she talked and chewed, she was methodically taking out his team until Justice was the last one remaining and his avatar disappeared into a building before she could take him out.

“Why don’t you like him? He sounds like a perfect neighbor to me.”

“Dude has to be a cheater. Why else would he rent a house to stay only for one weekend every other week? He doesn’t get any mail other than ads. Or a package that gets delivered when he’s staying there.”

“His behavior does seem shady.”

She knew, for Justice to agree, that meant something.

Using her controller, she moved her avatar, searching for him. Was he waiting for her to come into the building to take her out?

She stealthily made it to the building Justice had gone into and was about to equip her X-ray vision goggles when Justice jumped down on her.

“Nice move,” she complimented the other gamer.

His laughter sounded in her ear. “Nah, you’re just paying more attention to your neighbor than the game.”

“Not true. I couldn’t care less what he’s doing.” Despite her words, she couldn’t help herself from shifting her eyes back to the window to look at his house. “I wouldn’t even know his name if Katie hadn’t told me.”

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“Salvatore. Salvatore Lastra.”

TWO

INTO THE BACK OF THE COP CAR

“Like I said, more predictable than the news,” she huffed when the glow in the blinds went out.

“Lights out?” Justice laughed.

“Mmhmm.” It was between Sal, the bimbo, and God what they were up to now.

“Speaking of the news …” Her online friend broke into her lewd thoughts, bringing her back to the game at hand. “Have you seen the news today?”

Skillfully, she sniped an opponent down on the other side of the map. “No. Why?”

“There was a cyberattack at the Horseshoe.”

“That’s not surprising,” she grumbled before she took on a bit of a karmic laughter in her tone as she continued, “I told them for months we needed a serious upgrade in our firewalls.”

The Horseshoe was a casino in downtown Kansas City that Valerie had been employed by for almost a year before she got the boot for opening her mouth too much about the lack of cyber security. She was young and newly graduated from college with her IT degree when she’d started working there, and unfortunately for her, being young wasn’t the only thing that caused the senior members not to listen to her … She was also agirl. Even in video games, she was in enemy territory. Numerous amounts of times she had been told, “Be careful not to break a nail,” or worse, “Get back in the kitchen.”

Males lacked serious creativity with their humor, and it wasn’t until she was matched in an online game with Justice that she actually gave out a chuckle when he cussed her out about not picking up the health stick to revive him in a game. He had at least treated her like any other player, not like a girl.

Valerie was sure, like in most male-dominated fields, women were severely misjudged and not listened to. She had been obsessed with computers by the age of four and could build a PC by the age seven, but no one at her place of previous employment even cared to learn what she was capable of. Hell, she could have fixed the cybersecurity in an afternoon after coming back from lunch if they had let her, for no extra pay to her salary. Instead, the Horseshoe would most likely go bankrupt before they could afford another company to fix the fuckup now.

It was never good to fix itafterthe attack, with all the work you needed to do to repair the firewalls and start over with all new logins, passwords, and security, not to mention the lack of trust you’d lose from your customers.

Their competition across the street, the Casino Hotel, would chew them up and spit them out. It had stood there since the dawn of the city, and only the newness of the newly remodeled Horseshoe brought people in to gamble for the last year. The new owner was an I-D-I-O-T who used all the renovation money to make it look pleasing to the eye while totally ignoring the important infrastructure … like upgrading the cybersecurity.

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