Page 43 of Twice the Rivalry

“He was a ladies man, and I had no time for him,” she said bluntly. “He tried, sure, but that was mostly in the beginning. After a while, he only wanted to talk to me about computers and coding, and I was okay with that. When I was in my senior year, I applied to get into MIT and I was accepted, but when Forrest applied, he was rejected. He hadn’t been keeping up his grades, and he missed the qualifiers. Which of course pissed him off. No amount of money or threats could get him in, and his family refused to help him, I think mostly because they were hoping he would change his mind and give it up. He asked me to help him get in, but I told him no. I wasn’t about to pull favors for someone that didn’t seem to care about all the effort you had to put in to go to that school in the first place, especially when I had been on him about it for months before. So he decided to take matters into his own hands.

“He hacked MIT’s system and tried to enroll himself in the program, but of course he was caught, which meant that he was blacklisted. It also meant he was blacklisted at all the other prestigious colleges that he could have gone to, including medical schools. It was a huge public scandal, and where I grew up, that was social suicide. His parents disowned him, and blamed me. Said that I purposely sabotaged him by withholding how to do it properly and wanted him to get caught. Like I had some kind of agenda, and I was out to get him. It got him exiled from his entire family, and left him with only his trust fund.”

“Did you hold anything back on him?” Savaged asked her curiously.

She gave him a withering glare. “I was seventeen and didn’t know how to do half of this shit back then, so no,” she told him coldly. Savage held her stare, unfazed. “Anyway, I went to MIT and he came back begging me to use my connections or my money to get him back in because it was all my fault anyway. I told him to fuck off, which pissed him off, and he vowed to get revenge on me. Not that I paid much attention. I didn’t have time for that, and focused on getting my degree. I graduated and got recruited by the CIA, who put me through my paces before finally loaning me out to the military. I helped out on some classified missions, and it was decided my skills could be best used elsewhere, which is how I ended up with the team.”

“Could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw the pipsqueak they sent me,” Simba huffed, though Code could hear the amusement in his voice.

“A fact I quickly showed you didn’t matter when I took your ass down,” Glitch tossed back, but her lips twitched in amusement. “Anyway, I was with the team for a while before we got assigned a job in the Amazon to handle some kind of militia group terrorizing the locals, and also dealing guns and explosives on the black market. We were to clean it up, but our handlers felt that it was a two team job, so they paired us up with another team.”

“Hazard and his gang,” Code surmised.

She glanced at him, and he saw a flash of annoyance in her eyes at his interruption, but she nodded. “Exactly. Imagine my surprise when I saw my former friend standing there with them. He was pissed when he saw me, but I told him that we were on a job, and that meant whatever petty bullshit he had against me would have to wait and we could fight it out later. It also pissed him and his team off that our team was the lead on that particular mission. We didn’t play by any rules, but we had common decency, and we refused to let them hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“Not that he didn’t try,” Karissa added darkly. “I went a few rounds with Maggot on that job, and he didn’t take too kindly to a woman telling him what to do.” Razor frowned at that, but didn’t say anything. Code didn’t miss the way his hand tightened on her hip though, or the way his other hand moved to her outer thigh and rubbed soothingly. There was a story there, but since neither Karissa or Glitch elaborated, Code doubted that they would be finding out about it.

“Slip and Hazard were both pissed they weren’t the ones running the mission,” Glitch continued. “And they made it known with all their questioning and complaints. Finally, Simba put them down hard, and they did not like it. Before we walked away, I saw that same look in Forrest’s eyes. Well, he went by Slip then, so I’ll use that name to keep it simpler. Anyway, Slip got that pissed off look when I told him I wouldn’t help him with his MIT issue, and I had a gut feeling that he was going to do something stupid. I told the team, and they told me to keep an eye on him and see if I could hack into his computer remotely to figure out what he was up to. Before I could do that, he tried to hack my system, and I let him in to see what he was up to. He just so happened to do it the night before we were supposed to launch our attack on the militia group and take them down. If we succeeded, there were some substantial rewards in our future, and Hazard and his guys weren’t ones that liked to share. They were trying to send through false intel to make us go in the opposite direction so they could be the ones to achieve the objective and get the rewards.

“Once I realized that, I told Simba, and worked on a plan to turn it back around on them. It took some doing, but I was way better at hacking, and Slip wasn’t anywhere near as good as he thought he was. I found other shit in there that exposed him for just what he was. See, his team was loaning him out as a hacker and hitman to some criminal enterprises for extra cash, and the idiot kept all the records on his system, certain that he would never get caught.”

“Idiot,” Jax scoffed. “Even I know you don’t do that.”

“So I made copies of it all and we sent it through to our handler to deal with. The next day, we took down our target while Hazard and his team were chasing their tails. When they figured it out, they werepissed. The whole team lost their shit and tried to start a fight, but we had three more people than them, and even with me not really being involved in the fight, they knew they had to walk away. But, as soon as we got back on home turf, men in black suits were waiting about the information I had sent through. There was a lot of screaming and vowing revenge from Slip and Hazard, who were both arrested along with the rest of the team. The team was disbanded, of course, and they went to prison. I haven’t kept close tabs on them, but it’s clear they’ve been out and gotten the gang back together.”

“Can you pull up their prison records?” Simba asked.

Glitch nodded, and within moments, had them all up on the screen for everyone to see. “Seems they all got out within months of each other. Hazard first, then Crisp, Spook, and Maggot. Slip was the last, but he got out two years ago. Then they all went off the grid. But no one can stay off the grid forever. Give me a few hours and I’ll see if I can track their movements.”

“Why wouldn’t they have gone after you as soon as they were out of prison?” Ice asked. Code glanced at him and saw his icy blue eyes were sharp and curious.

“We were disbanded by that time,” Karissa answered. “Had been for a couple of years, actually, and none of us go by those names anymore. The government put us behind so much red tape, very few people have that level of clearance.”

“But I doubt they ever stopped looking for us,” Copper added. “They’re not the type to just let things go.”

“Suppose this Slip guy was stupid enough to try and hack the government?” Fury asked.

“The government would have shut him down immediately,” Code told him. On this particular subject, he had extensive knowledge. Hell, he had been one of those people who would have done it. “The government has teams all over the damn place and across multiple agencies, known and unknown, to make sure that information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“So now that he knows where you are, he’s coming for you,” Ink summarized, frowning.

“Slip is coming for me,” she corrected. “Hazard and the others want the team as a whole.”

“What are the chances that they’ll figure out you and Karissa are here?” Savage asked as he leaned forward, gaze hard and assessing. No doubt he was wondering how much danger his woman and children were in.

“Depends on them finding the connection,” Glitch answered honestly. “I know how to cover my tracks, and I can cover up the tracks of my team, but nothing is impossible. From what I saw earlier, Slip has upped his game, and he’s definitely got an ax to grind, so eventually he could figure out a way to get past me. I’m confident in my skills, but one off day and he could find me. Or, if he was smart, though I have my doubts about this, he could try to find someone in the team. Hell, a picture of one of us on the internet, even in the background, would be enough to give him a direction. The location wouldn’t even have to be obvious in the photo if whoever took it had their geotagging settings on.”

“Do you all look the same as when you were doing your mercenary gig?” Rogue asked.

“For the most part,” Simba replied. “Glitch and Karissa are the only ones to really change their appearance. And that was mostly just hair color.”

“Wait, you used to have a different hair color?” Razor asked Karissa, intrigued.

“Oh, sure, that’s what you heard out of that whole story,” Karissa huffed.

“What can I say? I have a thing for sexy brunettes, but I wouldn’t mind a picture,” he teased. Karissa rolled her eyes.

“Alright, so there’s a chance that they will recognize you if you’re seen or in a photo,” Savage summarized. “And from there it might be easier for them to find you. So, the two of you don’t leave the compound. We don’t want to give them a chance to spot you.”

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