Page 54 of Twice the Rivalry

He grunted. “Yeah, probably.” After another few minutes, he turned back to her and said, “Alright, I’m refining my search parameters. I also set up searches for any crimes that happened around the prisons they were released from in the month before and after. Could be they decided to stick around there for a bit to figure out their next moves.”

“Possible, but knowing Forrest, he would have wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. He’s not the most patient guy. Or, at least he wasn’t,” she corrected.

Code regarded her for a moment before he asked, “So what’s the story there? You gave a Cliffs Notes version in Church, but there’s got to be more to it. He’s pissed at you, but it’s been a very long time, and you’d think after all these years he’d eventually give up and move on. If his team is involved in organized crime, they’re probably making way more money now than they did as mercenaries.”

“It was so long ago now, I couldn’t even tell you where it went wrong,” she sighed. “ Forrest came from a life where he got everything he wanted. If he did something wrong, his parents paid people off or got it buried. The only reason the college thing happened was because it made the news before they could make it go away. Otherwise they would have just bribed the officials, the press, and the college itself. Once it hit the press, well, it was out of their hands and they cut him off for daring to embarrass them like that.”

“And he blamed you because he was stupid and did something he shouldn’t have,” Code summarized.

She shrugged. “I guess. Mostly, I think he was pissed that I refused to help him. Even then, I was good. I had figured out how to hack into some pretty high value targets with big security, but it wasn’t until I was in college and got in touch with a group of hackers and coders that my skills really took off. So even if I could have helped him, more than likely I would have gotten caught too, and it would have been both our asses.” She gave a short, dry laugh. “Hell, he even tried to hack into my high school and mess up my transcript so they’d revoke my admission and I would be as miserable as he was. Unlucky for him, I had an inkling that he was going to try something. I set up an alert for if he tried to mess with anything that was in my name. At the time I was insulted, and a bit confused. If he was going to do anything, I thought it would be to go after my money.”

“What, you had a trust fund?”

“I thought you looked into me,” she said with an arched brow.

“I did, but it was mostly so I could get your name, and I only got the bare bones of information. I know you’re twenty-nine, soon to be thirty in a couple of months, no siblings, and just finishing your first year at MIT. I also know that your full name is Eliza Marie Irvine, but you hate it and have gone by Glitch since college. Past that, I didn’t look into you too much.”

“That’s still a lot for a cursory look,” she said, slightly accusing.

“You really going to sit there and give me a hard time over that, when we both know that the minute you first met me and the others, you did a deep dive into all of us?” he asked her with a pointed look.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, yes, I did. But that was a totally different situation. I needed to make sure you weren’t going to screw us over, especially since you had a member of our team under your roof and in a relationship with one of your men. If the situation was reversed, you’d have done the same thing.” He stared at her but didn’t reply. “Fine, whatever. Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

“You’re the one going off on tangents,” he reminded her.

She glared at him. “Whatever. The truth is, I came from a very wealthy family as well, which meant I had multiple trust funds set up for me by my grandparents on both sides, and my parents. If he wanted to hit me where it hurt, Forrest should have tried to clean me out so I couldn’t afford to go to school, but he went after my high school transcript instead. All the damage he did, I fixed as soon as he was out of the system and made it right again. Thankfully back then the school hadn’t figured out how easy it was to hack in. No one was the wiser. Except Forrest, who was pissed and tried again, only to have the same result. It was like he couldn’t stop himself from trying to best me. Like it was some kind of competition.”

“Probably didn’t like to be beaten by a girl.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to blast him. “I’m not saying it’s right, but you know that a teenage boy’s ego is a fragile thing. Especially a boy that’s gotten used to having whatever he wanted and was terribly spoiled.”

She shut her mouth, but gave him a dark look. “Says the one who’s pissed that I best him on the regular. Maybe you should keep that in mind.”

He gave her a cool look. “I don’t care that you’re a woman andmaybeabitmore skilled than I am. I’m not arguing with you about that now. We can go a round about it later, but I want to hear more about Forrest. Maybe something from your past experiences with him will help us find him.”

“Fine,” she snapped, though she wasn’t about to let that ‘maybe a bit’ comment slide. “What else do you want to know?”

“You said that the two of you weren’t a thing, but are you sure that he might not have misconstrued your relationship in some way?”

“What, you think he’s some kind of scorned lover bent on revenge?” she scoffed. “No. I never even kissed him, even though he did try in the beginning. I was a challenge. One of the few girls that weren’t sucked in by his charms and taking off my pants or on my knees sucking his dick not long after meeting him.”

“So you didn’t flirt or tease him?” She glared at him. He held up his hands, palm up placatingly. “Not saying you did it on purpose, but teenage girls don’t think things through and a lot of them do that shit to lead a guy on.”

“Well, I wasn’t one of them,” she told him firmly. “One of the things I always prided myself on in school was that I wasn’t one of the mean girls. Most of the other kids were only nice to me because I came from one of the richest families around, and they hoped that staying in my good graces would mean being invited on trips, or get them expensive things that their parents wouldn’t or couldn’t afford. Unlucky for them, I had learned to spot that shit a mile away after a few hard lessons in elementary and middle school.”

“How rich are we talking?” Code asked curiously.

She rolled her eyes. “Out of all that, that’s the only thing you’re curious about?” she asked incredulously.

He gave her a droll look. “Humor me.”

She huffed. “When my parents died, along with my already established trust funds, I inherited about five hundred million dollars.”

He stared at her, mouth dropping open. “I’m sorry, care to repeat that?” he gaped.

She scowled at him. “You heard me just fine. And before you ask, Forrest came from a family that was worth about half of that, so he was just as well off, but I was technically richer than him. So money isn’t that high on my list of possible motives.”

“Jesus Christ,” Code muttered.

“Look, yes I’m rich. Yes I have more money than God and more than I could ever spend in a lifetime. But it doesn’t define me or who I am. I like working, and I like living my life free of all those hypocritical societal standards. I’ve set up charities and organizations to benefit from the money, and I have some people who manage them and my money the best way possible. None of that means I’m any different now than I was a minute ago.”

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