“Monday is too late, Becca. I need to work on this now.”
I ignored her father’s scoff.
“I need to stop them in their tracks before they destroy your name and credit rating.”
“How?” she asked.
Gerald spoke up. “Doing what he does best, I imagine. Breaking the law.” He met my gaze, his eyes calculating and frosty. “What excuse will you use then, Reid? You did it in the name of love?”
I was done, fed up to the teeth with his holier-than-thou attitude and his snide remarks. I didn’t care about his opinion—or Becca’s anger over my decision.
“I’m doing it because, whether or not you believe it, I know how to fix it. How to handle it so your daughter isn’t stressed and upset. So her privacy and information aren’t out there being compromised.”
“With your shortcuts, no doubt. Circumventing the law.”
“With all due respect, sir, fuck you. You can sit there and judge me, but I’m not going to stand around and wait for people to do ‘the right thing.’ Not when I can make it happen faster and stop it now.”
He snorted, his eyebrows lifting at my words. “Typical. Taking the easy way out. Bending the rules.”
I shrugged. I was done with his attitude and rudeness. “You’re entitled to your opinion.”
I slung my knapsack over my shoulder and headed for the door, flinging it open. Becca followed, reaching for my arm.
“Reid, please.”
I turned, looking down into her pain-filled eyes.
“Don’t—” she pleaded, her lip quivering.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask me to stay, Becca. I can fix this. And regardless of what your father thinks, what I’m going to do isn’t illegal. It’s making things right.”
Her eyes filled with tears that ran down her cheeks. “I-I don’t—”
“Hey,” I whispered, cupping her face. “Hush. I’m not angry at you.”
Her hands gripped my wrists, her body trembling. “I have to choose now. This is making me choose.”
I glanced behind her at her father. He was watching us closely, a self-righteous look on his face, knowing he had won. I refused to give him the satisfaction. I hated him for making her so upset and forcing the issue.
“It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to choose anything.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
I leaned my forehead to hers. “I never had a family, Becca. No parents to love me. I longed for that my whole life.”
Her voice trembled. “I know.”
“Your dad loves you so much he is willing to risk your anger instead of letting you make a mistake.”
“You’re not a mistake,” she whispered.
I kept talking. “I would never ask you to choose, baby. I love you too much. He’s your father—your family. That’s forever. There is no choice here.”
I pressed a kiss to her head and pulled back.
Her eyes were huge, the tears endless. “Wh-What are you saying?”
“You stay here with your dad. I’m going to go and do what I do, get my stuff, and head home.”
Her fingers grappled, tugging on my sleeve. “No, Reid—I can fix this. It’ll be fine. I’ll talk . . .”
“No.”
She stared up at me, wordless.
“You have tried. We both have. It’s clear nothing we do will change his opinion of me. I love you, Becca. But sometimes, that isn’t enough. Because he will never allow it, and I refuse to be part of the reason for your sadness. I won’t let you be caught in the middle of a feud for your affection.” I kissed her lips softly. “It’ll be okay, baby. You’ll be okay.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
“I’m going to fix your problem. I promise you that. I will make it right for you.”
I backed away and pulled the door shut behind me.
I was lying—to her and myself. One thing I knew for sure: I wouldn’t ever be okay again.
Not without her.
I had texted Richard as I grabbed a cab, and he arrived at The Gavin Group building a few minutes after I did. When I explained what had happened, he let me into their server room, not hesitating for a moment.
“I won’t do anything that can be traced back to this place. All I need is the power and some machines.”
He waved his hand. “It’s yours.”
“You don’t need to check with Graham?”
“You’re good. We trust you.”
I pulled out my laptop. “Any of your IT people around, by chance?”
“No, do you need something?”
“An extra pair of eyes and hands. And access to your network room, so we can get to work.”
He held up his pass card. “I can do all that.”
“Great.”
Richard stared at the screen. “Should I understand what you’re doing?”
“No. I’d be surprised if you did.”
“Can you explain it in small words?”
I laughed, my eyes never leaving the screen. “I’ve back-doored into the banking system. It appears the hackers laid a URL to misdirect real users to a phishing site. I found the key logger they placed to get log-in info and passwords from users. They embedded them within an email that was sent as the bank’s newsletter. But they left their coding fingerprints behind, and now I’m finding the people who did this.”
“For what purpose?”
“I’m taking Becca’s money back—and wiping every trace of her from their system. Then I’m going to load a virus into their machines so powerful it will destroy them.”
For the first time, he sounded nervous. “They won’t know?”
“No. My laptop . . .” My voice trailed off, and I cleared my throat. “Let’s just say my laptop is invisible. I’ll be rerouted and thoroughly masked, so even if they try, they won’t be able to figure it out before they explode.”
“Are you sure you can find them?”
I glanced at him. “I already have.”
“Holy shit. Maddox told me you had mad skills. I guess he was right.”
“I don’t use them anymore, but this is an exception.”
“Are you really leaving when you’re done, Reid? Walking away from Becca?”
“What can I do, Richard? Force her to choose between her father and me? I dislike him, but he is her family.”
“She loves you.”
“For how long? She’d hate having to hide the fact that she talks to him or goes to see him. I won’t make her do that.” I snorted. “You can be fucking sure I’m not coming back.” I sighed and passed a weary hand over my face. “Besides, if this backfires, I’ll be back in jail tomorrow.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Becca’s credit will be restored, her money back in her account. The people who did this will be helpless. They’ll start again, but they won’t have her information or probably hundreds or thousands of others. I’ve disabled their malware and reinforced the unauthorized access points for the bank. And hopefully, I will have damaged such a huge part of their network, and flooded so many of their machines, it will take them long enough to rebuild their protocols that the police will be on them first.”