“I can’t believe I agreed to ride your motorcycle again.” Daphne quickly withdrew her arms from where they’d been wrapped around Ethan’s torso and stepped onto the curb, tugging her hat lower over her hair.
“Please, you love the bike,” Ethan insisted. “It’s a manifestation of all the reckless things you won’t be allowed to do anymore once you’re a princess.”
Daphne shot him a look, wondering just what he meant to imply by reckless and forbidden things, but then she took in their surroundings and faltered.
A deserted-looking office building stared down at them. “Are you sure this is the right place?” she asked dubiously.
“Yep.” Ethan started toward the lobby, and she trotted to keep up.
“How do you even know a hacker?”
“Ray and I go way back. We were on the same T-ball team in elementary school, actually.” Ethan pushed open the door to the staircase, flicking on a switch that illuminated the fluorescent lights overhead.
“This feels like a murder scene in a horror movie,” Daphne said under her breath. Ethan ignored her.
They emerged into a half-finished office space. Paint buckets and empty water bottles were scattered over the subfloor, and the walls were open in places, with insulation fluffing out of them like cotton candy.
“This is Ray’s office?”
A laugh sounded behind them, light and airy like the pealing of bells. Daphne whirled around and saw an Asian American girl leaning against a worktable. With her simple black top and jeans, her hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked utterly normal—forgettable, even.
“The office isn’t mine,” the girl announced. “We’re just borrowing it for this meeting. The owners aren’t moving in for months; they’ll never know.” She nodded to the open walls. “Plus, we know it’s not bugged, so that’s a plus.”
“Wait. You’re the hacker?” Daphne asked, comprehension dawning.
The girl rolled her eyes. “I assume you were expecting a guy?”
“You said his name was Ray!” Daphne whirled back to face Ethan.
“Rei. R-E-I,” he corrected, fighting back a laugh.
“It’s a Korean name.” Rei jumped up to sit on the table and swung her legs back and forth. “Ethan. You didn’t give Daphne any context on me? I’m a little offended.”
“I know better than to tell anyone your story. I don’t want to end up being accosted in a dark alley.” Ethan came to stand next to the table, and Rei nudged him with her boot.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Daphne stared at them. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Ethan so at ease, his body language relaxed, even playful. The knowledge that some strange girl had brought out this side of him was profoundly irritating.
“Thanks for meeting us, Rei,” she said, a bit coolly.
The other girl nodded. “I hear you need my help tracking the source of an email.”
“Is that something you normally do?” Daphne fumbled. “Or, really—what do you normally do?”
“I deal in secrets.”
“What kind of secrets?”
“The expensive kind.” Noticing Daphne’s frustration, Rei relented. “Look, I help people spy on their exes, change their school grades, fake vital documents. I don’t steal,” she added solemnly.
“How do I know you won’t tell anyone about this?”
Rei waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I have better things to do than to break your story to the tabloids. Now, come on, show me your email. I’ve already seen Ethan’s.”
Daphne pulled her laptop from her bag and, with some trepidation, handed it over.
Rei slid off the table and opened the laptop to the incriminating email. “May I?”
When Daphne nodded, Rei began typing at lightning speed. Daphne was mesmerized by the sight of her purple manicure flying over the keyboard, issuing commands that made the computer turn into something alien, a black screen with strange letters and numbers illuminated in incomprehensible sequences.
“What does—” she began, but Ethan reached for her in warning. The contact startled Daphne into silence. She quickly jerked her hand away.
A few minutes later, Rei stretched her arms overhead, blinking as if waking from a trance. “As I expected, this is the same firewall as Ethan’s email. Someone is harassing you both,” she warned, “but I’m not going to figure out who on your puny little laptop. I need real horsepower for this one. More than even I have.”
“What do you mean?” Daphne asked, but Ethan understood at once.
“How much?”
“A few thousand? I’ll need to rent a private server bank to get enough computing power.”
“We’ll work on it,” Ethan promised.
Rei nodded distractedly. “This is one of the most intense encryption systems I’ve seen. It’s either government, or someone incredibly wealthy and paranoid about security,” she added, talking more to herself than to them.
“That makes perfect sense!” Daphne exclaimed. “The Madisons would have access to the government’s digital security. Plus they have plenty of money, and secrets to hide.”
“Daphne thinks the emails were sent by Gabriella Madison,” Ethan explained, in response to Rei’s confused look.
“A duke’s daughter?” Rei looked intrigued. “Why would she blackmail you like this?”
“Because she’s an awful person, and she hates me.”
“She can’t be the only one.”
Daphne looked up sharply, but exhaled when she saw the teasing smile on Rei’s lips.
Ethan chuckled appreciatively. “I knew you two would get along.”
“If that’s what you call it,” Daphne shot back, though strangely enough, she found that she trusted Rei. People who insulted you to your face rarely bothered to stab you in the back.
She turned to Rei, an idea forming. “Can you remotely hack a personal computer?”
“Depends on whose computer. Are you asking me to hack Gabriella?”
“Daphne, no,” Ethan cut in.
She scowled at him. “We’re wasting time tracking this email. We should be focusing on Gabriella, find some way to take her down!”
“Out of the question,” Ethan insisted. “If she finds out, she’ll try to hurt you. I don’t want you messing with the Madisons.”