Page 23 of My Fake Billionaire Damaged Boyfriend

“When I was sixteen, they came to see me in the group home. They seemed normal enough, happy enough without me, and I was okay with their choices. I had some really good foster parents, and I had a nice education through middle school. I wasn’t upset.”

Her voice says otherwise, and her tone droves near the edge of agony, but I digress.

“When I aged out at eighteen, they gave me a box of my things, and I was supposed to get setup downtown in my own apartment. You know, because we don’t actually own anything. I got all the files from when I was a baby, and when they gave me up, but they pulled me into the city hall office before I even made it downtown. Apparently, my parents died in a car accident, and they left me the beneficiary of all their things.”

My heart warms slightly. “Maybe to make up for the fact that they abandoned you.”

“Hardly,” she says, venom in her words. “Because of that, I didn’t qualify for the apartment downtown, and I was given the house and car that was in my parents’ names. Only problem? I got their surmounting debt, as well. Everything had a damn lien on it. Everything. And I didn’t have a choice but to work the debt off. One of my teachers that was teaching me coding set up a petition to help me raise money to pay off the debt, and further my degree in technology, and it worked.”

“That’s a plus side at least.”

“It’s pity, Dimitri. Four-thousand, five-hundred and six people pitied me. That’s it. And what did it get me? I’m hardly two weeks into my dream coding job, and I’m already in on a coo with my boss’ rival to take him down. I’m a fraud, and I’m too broke to be anything but a fraud.”

I bite my tongue, wanting to throw honest grenades into the trenches of war this woman has built around her heart. Her body was more than willing to be vulnerable to me, and her brain is something I can never understand, not with the complexities of code and system hardwired into her mind.

It’s her soul that’s broken, her heart that’s bleeding, and I’m doing her no favors by adding insult to injury and creating this new problem for her to handle.

And man, is it a fucking problem.

“We don’t have to handle Alek,” I say, blurting the thoughts in my mind as they come, “We can hand over what we have so far to the authorities and leave it at that.”

She turns fully, clinging to the blanket around her chest where only the side of her breast is visible. “And say what? We don’t have enough proof to build a solid case, Dimitri. We can’t stop now.”

I smile, glad that at least for now, I have my little coding firecracker back, “Well, let’s get to it, Kitten.”

CHAPTER10

Izzy

Ihurry into the office, pulling my skirt down and hoping that no one notices that this is the same outfit I left work in on Friday. I made it a point to wash it at Dimitri’s penthouse, but wearing a robe, his shirt, and the blankets of his bed as attire for the past two days was a nice change of pace for me.

Even now, while I’m worried about people noticing my attire, I can’t help but shuffle to a stop in the middle of the office. Gwen yanks me away from the bullpen where my heels stick into sheets of papers tossed asunder through the office. There’s a lack of organization everywhere, and an odd buzz in the air while we press our backs to the walls with the other onlookers.

“What the hell happened here?” I gust, shaking my head at the sight of desks overturned, and computers hauled off in boxes carried by men in suits, “Are we being robbed?”

“It’s more like an audit,” Gwen says, shaking her head at the mess, “Well, I guess it’s more of an internal review.”

“Of what, exactly?”

“Of everything and everyone.”

I shake my head, watching a handful of thugs charge into my office. I recall my personal software is installed into the system, and I don’t need that kind of revelation coming up on any internal reviews. Dropping my satchel, I hurry across the scatters of papers and throw myself in my office just in time.

Clinging to my keyboard, I run my hand along the edge of the plastic until I feel my flash drive against my clammy palm. Still, I can’t just pull it out and walk away, not with five burley guys standing over my desk, waiting to tear it, and possibly me, into shreds.

“Get out of here, girl,” one of them taunts, his meaty palm pressed to the top of my monitor, “We have to take everything into evidence right away. Boss’ orders.”

“I have important tasks and files on this computer, I can’t just let you rip it out of the wall and carry it away. It has dockets of information and lines of code that I can’t just create out of thin air. It’s very important that this system isn’t destroyed.”

“Yeah, yeah. We get it, girl. Now, move out of the way, or—”

“Hey now,” a thick accent huffs from the doorway. Alek’s expression darkens as he looks at the men standing opposite of me. With their heads turned for a moment, I take the flash drive out of the computer, and stand straight, like a private at attention for their sergeant, “We don’t threaten employees,” he warns, “Everyone out. This room can remain intact for now.”

With the Great Danes all tucking their tales and scampering out of the room, Alek takes my arm as I try to pass him in the doorway. He yanks me back inside my office and firmly closes the door behind us both. I swallow, turning the flash drive over in my palm as I tuck my hands behind my back, and insert it sideways against the hem of my tight skirt.

He doesn’t seem too pleased to see me right now, and I can’t blame him in the slightest.

“Tell me something, Izzy. Where did you learn to code so well?”

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