AJ laughed. “You’re joking, right? Why would I help the evil mastermind who fucked over my former boss and my current sexual obsession?”
Wes let his surprise show. Last he’d heard, the boss was up close and personal with Emma Mathison, a former Whitfield Industries employee and the original suspect for the hack that had landed Wes in prison. “You and Max, huh? How’s his girlfriend taking that?”
“Ew. No. I worked for Max, you perv. It was never like that between us. Liam is my boyfrie—my sex toy,” she corrected, but not fast enough.
The fact that she’d quit working for Max intrigued him, but the Cybercore connection was a total blindside. Her screwing the CEO would have been...less than ideal on its own, but the fact she obviously considered Liam Kearney more than a fling did not bode well for his mission.
“Not to mention, I’m the one who caught your ass.”
Oh. And there was that.
Wes forced himself to maintain a casual tone. “Yeah. You really fucked that one up. Consider this your chance to atone.”
She leaned toward the screen, a Cheshire cat smile curving her lips. “For a man who’s not supposed to be anywhere near the internet, I’d think you’d want to watch how you talk to me right now. One press of a button, and I can have you back on Terminal Island so fast your head would spin.”
“Really, AJ?” His voice was laced with irritation. “Isn’t all this behind us? You tried to hack Whitfield Industries, and I caught you fair and square. I know that pisses you off, and that putting me away for this breach feels like revenge, but do me a solid and put the bloodlust aside for a second. Think it through. How’d you find me? Was it just a little too easy to connect the dots? And did the path lead straight to me?”
She glared at him, and he knew he had her.
“You know I’m better than that,” he said simply. “I wouldn’t have caught you if I wasn’t.”
AJ crossed her arms. “You called me sloppy.”
His words rushed back to him, the ones he’d said to Max Whitfield five years ago.
She’s got skills, but she’s impulsive. Lets her ego get in the way of her work. That’s how I caught her. She’s talented, yeah, but she’s fucking sloppy, and sloppy gets you caught. If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up bailing her out instead of the other way around. You need a hacker, not a hack.
Not the most flattering assessment, he had to admit. Wes scratched his bearded jaw. “I didn’t know you were with him when he called me.”
Her frown deepened. “Try again.”
“It was a bad day.”
“Thanks for the oversimplified recap, dickwad.”
“It was a bad day for me,” he clarified, figuring he owed her at least that. “Jesse had sunk everything we had into scoring Whitfield Industries as a client.”
One big client, Jesse had insisted. Once one mega-corp takes us seriously, the others will have no choice but to follow suit. You’ll see.
He’d been right, too. But AJ had almost fucked it all up.
“Our contract was one week old when you burrowed through our defenses.” Wes shook his head. “You were almost all the way in before I even noticed you. The first real test of my tech, and you were this damn close to breaching it.”
Because Wes hadn’t been watching. Not like he should have been. No, he’d been too preoccupied with revenge. With showing Vivienne what a colossal mistake she’d made, leaving him before he’d had a chance to prove his worth.
But if Soteria Security was successful? That would be hard evidence he was destined for more than landscaping and manual labor. Proof that unlike his father, he could take care of a family. Proof that unlike his mother, Viv’s money had nothing to do with why he wanted to be with her.
And AJ’s elegant hack had almost cost him the contract. Which would have cost him his company. And his company was all he’d had left. It had never been AJ he’d been angry at. She’d just been convenient. A stand-in for the woman who’d breached his heart and taken everything.
“I was mad at Vi—” He bit back her name just in time. “—at someone else, and I took it out on you.” His jaw tightened. “And the truth is, the only person I should have been mad at was myself. I’m the one who didn’t do my job, and I didn’t want Whitfield to know it. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
It was as close to sorry as he was willing to get, considering she’d landed him in the pen.
AJ stared at him, and he could see her seeing too much. Reading between the lines. It felt like shit to let her, but what choice did he have? And he might not know her, but he’d studied her—and her hacking style—in the years since well enough to know that the driving need to prove himself against all comers was a motivation this woman understood.
AJ lifted her brows and leaned back in her chair. “Well, this just got uncomfortably honest.”
Her version of apology accepted.
Wes exhaled with relief. “Yeah, well. I’m on kind of a tight schedule here. I need to know exactly what led you to me. Someone laid that trap you found, and you’re going to help me take the bastard down.”
“Remind me again why I’m going to do that?”
“Because besides me, you’re the best, AJ. And I need the best.”
She gave him a hard look, the kind that said she was trying to figure out if he was bullshitting her or not.
“Look, clock’s ticking here. What do you want? A show of good faith?”
His fingers flew over the keys, preparing an offering that no hacker worth her keyboard could refuse.
It was the biggest gamble of his life, putting his fate in enemy hands, but there was no alternative. He wasn’t going back to jail.
Desperate times, he assured himself as he hit the
