Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“Herpes,” she chirped. “Always popping up out of nowhere when you least expect it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“How did you even know?” I asked.
“I have your phone tapped,” she said. “I told you that I wanted to help you.”
She had.
Months ago, she’d come to me when she’d gotten bored and expressed an interest in helping me with my work. I’d told her a resounding no.
I just couldn’t handle being around her.
Not when everything that she was set my teeth on edge.
“Well, then it’s time to get over it, Kobe Sano.”
CHAPTER 2
Good men still exist. Your eyelashes just won’t let you see them.
-Folsom to a customer
FOLSOM
“Why is it that you can’t stay in your lane?”
I looked over at my best friend.
“Why would I want to stay in my lane when everyone else’s lane is a whole lot more fun?” I asked.
My best friend Morrigan was my best friend for a reason. She took me as is. Allowed me to have my faults. Didn’t complain when I got too far in her business—or anyone else’s business, for that matter.
She loved me for me, and that was what I needed.
Someone that didn’t care when I invaded her privacy and didn’t care that I broke the law.
What she cared about was the way that I always helped people. That I was always there for her.
“That may be true,” she said. “But one day, he’s going to kill you.”
She was right.
That night, years ago, he didn’t know it, but he gained a guardian angel.
He stayed when he didn’t have to stay.
He provided a helping hand—hell, he’d caught my baby as she practically launched herself out of my vagina—when I needed one most.
From that moment on—after I’d recovered from childbirth, of course—I’d gone out of my way to keep an eye on him. To make sure that he was doing all right.
He needed a break? Well, I made sure that he got one. Even if I had to hack into the warden’s computer that oversaw his penitentiary.
He needed extra medicine because of headaches he wasn’t telling anyone he was having? I hacked into the doctor’s computer, made notations in his patient chart, and ensured that anytime that he needed Tylenol, or something even stronger, all he had to do was look at the doctor.
And I watched him. I watched him on every single camera in every single room of that prison.
Well, all but the one that gave me any intimate insights into his life. Those I left alone because I knew there was a line that I couldn’t cross.
Not when it came to him.
Anything he did in his private cell—and yes, I ensured that he got one all to himself—was off-limits to me.
I even got him—as well as all the people I watched him protect from afar—out of prison.
How did I do that?
I contacted a friend. A friend who also happened to be a fellow hacker. And, like Kobe, had been wrongfully imprisoned.
Once I’d learned how they’d gotten out early—nothing was truly “hidden” from me—I’d contacted my hacker friend. Who’d then contacted his “boss.” That boss had then noted the merit in my plan and gone to bat for Kobe.
Though, it was all Kobe saving his friends. I’d just wanted him out. I hadn’t much cared about the rest of them.
Not that the rest of them—Wake, Cassius, Bain, Aodhan, Davis and Etienne—weren’t great people. They were. Etienne was also a good friend, so this was a no-brainer—help them all. But my main priority was Kobe.
Not even Etienne or Aodhan being with my only friend Morrigan could make me go out of the way for him like I had for Kobe.
Why did I want the world for Kobe?
Well, in one true act of kindness, he’d literally saved my life.
He didn’t have to.
Not even being the one and only person that I should stay well and truly as far away from as I was capable of could make me leave him alone.
Why did I need to stay far away from him?
Because I was the woman from his cold case. The one person that had “gotten” away from him.
My case—and JP’s case—was handed to him when I was at my lowest.
After hearing Lisbeth and Farrell’s plan to take my daughter—the girl that was genetically half me—away from me the moment I birthed her, I’d run. I’d gone into hiding and had done what I do best—hacking—to hide my trail.
It was them hiring Kobe that changed my life.
I’d seen him coming from a mile away.
He was good, yes. But he wasn’t better than me.
He was everything that I was not—good, sensible, and ultimately respecting the law.
Meanwhile, I was a pain in the ass, went out of my way to stick it to anyone who would let me, and I was so gray that you couldn’t tell whether there was more white than black.