Page 41 of Parker

“I was with Justin the night he was arrested.” Jinx licked her lips nervously. “In fact, I’m the reason he got arrested.”

“You?” Parker frowned. “How was that your fault?”

“I should really back up a step.” She shifted in her seat. “The hacking I used to do… It was little stuff. Illegal, yes, but everything I did was to help people. I know I still shouldn’t have done it, but I was young and dumb. Thought doing something wrong for the right reasons made it okay.”

Having had his fair share of young and dumb days, that was something he could relate to.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Justin was it for me. Or at least I thought so at the time. He was handsome and charming…and he spoke my language, you know?” Jinx released a humorless chuckle. “There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him back then. Including agreeing to help him hack into a major credit card company, make duplicate cards from their active accounts, and use those to teach the company a lesson about targeting vulnerable, desperate people.”

“Christ, Jinx.” He sat up straighter. “You realize, you could’ve been sent away for like twenty years for something like that?”

“I know. Trust me, I know.” She shook her head, clearly disgusted with herself for having agreed to such an asinine plan. “Justin told me this sob story about his parents, and how they’d had to declare bankruptcy, losing everything because of their credit card debt. So, like an idiot, I agreed to help make the public more aware of how those companies set up people, like his parents, for financial failure with all their hidden fees, massive interest rates, etc. But before you tell me again how stupid of a plan it was, I was already planning to do a dummy hack.”

It was a term he was very familiar with. “So you were going to go through the motions and make it look as though everything was working according to plan—”

“When in reality, it would only appear that way on screen,” she finished for him. “Exactly.”

“What about after? Your boyfriend would’ve figured it out the first time he used one of the fake cards.”

“I figured I’d explain it away with some higher-level code speak he wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t the perfect plan, but I figured it would at least buy me some time to talk him out of the idea altogether.” She swallowed. “I just needed to buy enough time to convince him making some grand societal statement wasn’t worth the risk to himself…or me.”

Parker studied her closely, and it didn’t take long to understand. “That’s how they got to you, isn’t it? They hung your future over your head until you agreed to help them.”

“Mine and Justin’s, both.” Her blonde hair moved up and down the tops of her shoulders as she nodded. “A woman approached me a few days before it all went down. Showed me her I.D. and said she was an agent with Chicago’s FBI Cybercrimes Division. She had pictures of me and of Justin, as well as this other guy named Monty Dunne. I didn’t know all the details at the time, but Monty was a suspect in several high-profile cybercrimes. The Feds could never get enough to catch him, but when they found out about Justin and his plan, they knew that was their chance.”

“Let me guess. The Feds wanted to use Justin to get to Dunne—"

“And they used me to get to Justin.” She finished his thought once more. “They hid a tiny camera in my hat and fitted me with a wire. If they got what they needed, I wouldn’t be charged for my role in the scheme. And as long as Justin agreed to testify against Monty, they promised a lesser sentence.”

“You said this was six years go. Why is Justin still in prison?”

From what she’d told him, he should’ve been out a few years ago.

“Because during their investigation, the federal prosecutor found other crimes Justin had committed. Things I didn’t know about.”

“Like what?”

“Fraud…extortion…” Her expression turned sad, and damn if that didn’t hurt him to see. “He would’ve only been in for two years with the deal I helped get for him. But then they discovered these other things Justin had done…things Ineverwould have supported…and they decided to make an example out of him.”

“That’s on him, Jinx. Not you.”

“Quinn.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Quinn Wilder. That’s my real name.” Those enchanting eyes stared back into his. “I figure you’ve more than earned the right to know it.”

Ah…finally.

Parker’s mouth spread into a slow grin. The wait was over. He had both the face and the name, and there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with either one.

“Quinn.” He held her gaze. “I like it.”

“Thanks.” A tiny smile graced her gorgeous face a breath before it fell. “And you’re right. Justin made his bed, and any guilt I felt vanished the second he told the Feds the credit card hack was my idea.”

Asshole.“I suppose it’s a good thing you wore the wire.”

“Right?”

---