Page 14 of Hacked For Love
“And so, apparently, is my safety,” he murmurs, sounding even more intrigued. “You’re poised to die for your ideals, aren’t you? Rather than risk an innocent man gettingkilled?”
I snort. “Yes, except for one thing—you’re not any more innocent than Iam.”
“Actually, I’m probably significantly less so,” he admits calmly. “But that is not who I wish to be anymore.”
I gaze into his eyes and feel something in me untether and drift toward him, like a riptide pulling me far out into a warm sea. My heart aches with a longing I don’t fully understand, and I realize too late that he’s more dangerous than I everanticipated.
“Me neither,” I whisper breathlessly, looking everywhere but athim.
“How did you choose the recipients?” he asks calmly, voice gone smooth and businesslike again. It helps. I focus back on the conversation, which he’s approaching in the manner of a man who is about to close a businessdeal.
“I crawled social media, local listings of foreclosures in progress, registries with collection agencies. Things like that.” I’m playing it casual. The same data collection AI I coded to gather dirt on Washington’s billionaires also sniffed out the suffering and at-risk among the locals with littleeffort.
In fact, narrowing the number of recipients down to twenty thousand had left me with a lingering stomachache for weeks. It was like doing triage in a trauma hospital. “Basically, I picked people who would be completely sunk if I didn’t stepin.”
He tilts his head just slightly. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. Your parents were quite wealthy. Why didn’t you steal your inheritance back from youruncle?”
The shock of him mentioning my past pulls a bitter laugh from my throat before I can stop it. For one terrible moment, I’m back watching the strange man in the dark suit lock the gate of my home.I ask him where my uncle is as I clutch my one suitcase to me, and he says, “I’m sure I don’t know,” before he walks off, leaving methere.
“If you’re going to invade my privacy in return, I’ll ask you to at least get the facts straight.” Briefly, my face is down in my hands. But I manage to raise my head with all the strength of will I canspare.
He’s watching me, his brows drawn together—a look of sympathetic concern on his face that shocks me. “Why don’t you tell me what happened,then?”
“He has friends and connections at Interpol and the Yard, even the FBI. I have only ever been able to take back little bits of what is mine and make his online life very inconvenient. I’ve never really been able to avenge myself.” I rub my face, not wanting him to see the threateningtears.
You don’t show weakness. If you do, people pounce.I berate myself internally until I can composemyself.
“I’m assuming you’ve at least gotten some form of poetic revenge?” he asks a bit urgently, just a little edge of anger to histone.
I stare at him. That makes it even worse. The man isempathizing.Or he’s putting on such a good act that I can’t tell the difference. The former is unimaginable. The latter frightens me so much I can only hope it isn’ttrue.
“What do you care?” I challenge in a low, pointedvoice.
He seems to snap out of some kind of reverie, and his smile becomes wry. “I guess that was a touch personal. I just don’t like the idea of the bastard getting away withit.”
“Oh, he isn’t getting away with it. He’s just not aware of that.” I don’t divulge the details, and that only seems to intrigue himfurther.
It’s true, though. In the last five years, my uncle’s wife left him over gambling debts that didn’t exist, he lost any chance at a political life after his abandonment of me became very public, and he doesn’t know at all where some of his money is disappearing to. He’s developed a drinking problem, which makes it even harder to keep track ofthings.
And yet of course, it’s not enough. It’s neverenough.
“So, this is what you do. You set the rich and wicked against each other or punish them individually, siphoning off their money, and keep those who have no chance otherwise from falling completely into the dark.” His tone is toowarm.
My heart starts pounding. I look out the glass wall at the traffic splashing past and swallow hard. “There’s a certain emptiness that you feel when you realize that no one in the world gives a damn about you or what happens to you, and that most of the people who could do something about it are only out forthemselves.”
He speaks up in a low, solemn tone—and all but finishes my thought as I slowly turn my gaze back to him. “Suddenly you must live or die by your own strength and wits, and maybe any allies you can make along the way. You must learn to be tough, even if you’re terrified. And the whole time, the one scrap of humanity that you manage to hold onto—your conscience, your principles—pains you daily and may one day will get youkilled.”
I swallow, my mouth painfully dry. “How do you knowthat?”
“I lived it, too.” Now it’s his turn to look away, and I realize he’s got his own reservations about trusting me, though he’s trying to reach pastthem.
Or he could be playing me for a fool. I have no way of knowing. I can only trust him…or not.“Is that why you are more interested in finding out how the money’s being used than…revenge?”
“That’s part of it. The other part is that since we’re apparently going to be working together for a bit to rectify this situation, I want to see how you handle your ‘rescues.’” He’s turned back into the smooth businessman again, and I’m both relieved anddisappointed.
“What’s your interest?” I’m suddenly uncertain where he’s going with this. He keeps surprising me; I’m not sure whether I like it ornot.
I just wish I didn’t feel warm all over every time his lips curve into asmile.
