Bleeding Edge: Elliot Security (Elliot Security Series Book 2) by Evie Mitchell (short story to read .txt) 📗

“What?”

“And that’s our cue to leave.” Sawyer reached across, grabbing the laptop as he and Jack stood.

“Later, kids.” He pressed a kiss to my head. Jack raised a sleepy hand and followed Sawyer out.

We listened as they left, the door shutting behind them. A blush worked its way up my throat flushing my cheeks.

Our eyes locked.

“Bravest woman I know,” Luc repeated, his voice loud in the quiet house.

“Luc…”

“Every moment I think you’re about to break, you stand tall and strong and just beat it back. I am in awe of you, Emmie Franklin.”

His hands crept up my neck and his lips descended. The kiss felt quiet, warm, comforting.

He withdrew only slightly. “The real you is beautiful.”

Then he kissed me again.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Emmie

Work was difficult for a number of reasons. An hour in, I still couldn’t concentrate so I did what I normally did when stuck. I made a list.

Reasons why I am distracted

1. David has found me

I closed my eyes. If I wanted to, I could leave. I could literally get up out of my chair, grab my bag, and leave. No one would know, at least not for a while. I could hide, jumping around cities, doing what I’d prepared for.

2. I don’t want to leave

It was true. I didn’t. I was tired of the fear and the planning and the need to leave. I wanted a home. I wanted a new couch. I wanted a dog. I wanted a family.

I wanted this family. This crazy family full of beautiful, crazy people who all lived incredible loving lives. I wanted this family of friends, chosen by me. My family.

3. Luc kissed me

I underlined it three times, added an exclamation mark, then circled it in blue highlighter. Damn. Damn that man. When I most needed to be level-headed and sane, he messed me up. He destroyed me. I couldn’t lie to myself, I wanted to stay because of him.

After we’d kissed the second time, he’d gently withdrew, his forehead pressed against mine. We’d stood in each other’s arms, heads pressed together, no words spoken. After a long moment, he’d slowly shifted back, his smile gentle.

“Let’s get to work.”

And we had. We’d gotten ready, he’d driven us in, and together we’d walked into the office.

Together.

He’d turned my world upside down by moving us from a me to a we.

My head and heart didn’t know what to think or feel.

4. My friends all know

This was my reality. My friends all knew about my past. They knew about the rape, about my upbringing, about the lies I’d told, and the thefts I’d committed. I had nowhere left to hide.

To be honest, I was surprised they allowed me in the building.

“Emmie.”

I raised my head.

Our floor was bright and colourful and full of people who loved their jobs. Three of the guys stood against our plotting wall, their arms crossed as they stared at the roll out sheet.

We were updating our systems over the next two months starting next weekend. Planning had started three months ago. Patches were easy, fully reconfiguring hundreds of PCs with little disruption to people or bottom line?

Yeah, not so much.

I shoved away from my desk, taking in the whiteboard scribbles.

“I can see the issue.” I pointed to the time curve which linked one batch to another. “Twelve hours? That’s if nothing goes wrong. Pax will say the risk is unacceptable. You need to reduce it.”

Greg grunted, his mouth a straight line, his moustache twitching. “We can’t break it up. Even if we do it over the weekend–”

“We run the risk of fucking it up,” Max chipped in. “If we did it all in one hit, the performance load could overwhelm the system. We’d be fucked.”

“Ha. Thanks for the man-splaining.” I rolled my eyes. “I meant how can we fuck it up doing a staged roll out over a weekend?”

“We’d have to take the external access offline,” Max retorted.

“Why?”

“We need to get it down and done in one hit. It’s too difficult to pull people in, in drips and drabs.”

“Fair call.” I pretended to ponder the timeline in front of me. “What if we rolled out by name?”

“Explain.”

“A-J, K-O, P-T, U-Z. We roll it out one after another, one weekend between. That way we can schedule people on to cover for those who won’t have access.”

They scratched their chins in unison. I struggled to suppress my grin.

“That could work.”

Greg nodded. “Yep. Lots of overtime though.”

I laughed. “Since when has that ever been an issue?”

I twisted to head back to my desk and caught Sawyer’s eye. He glanced at me, then at the guys, then back, one eyebrow raised.

I rolled my eyes in response.

I knew what they were doing. They were attempting, in their own way, to make me feel valued and show nothing had changed. Patronising as hell, I loved them for trying, in their own way, to make me feel included. These types of roll outs were standard. We did the same thing each time. But I appreciated the effort and the thought. Even if they showed it in a slightly belittling way.

The West Investments account sat open on my computer. I’d finished vulnerability testing. Luc had done physical security checks. West Investments were not coming up gold. If anything, their report card wavered at a C minus, slipping towards a D. Not good at all. I’d gotten administrator privileges two days ago and was currently running a tailored diagnostic software. It would seek out, identify, and classify anomalies. At Elliot Securities, we designed the best.

I unlocked my screen to see a small notification had popped up in my account window. I clicked, then frowned, looking at the diagnostics. Picking up the phone, I hit Luc’s extension. It diverted to his mobile.

“Hey, Keys.”

“Where you at?”

“I’m doing a tour of the Hitchin’s building. What’s up?”

“West Investments. Diagnostics came back. It’s a keylogger.”

A trojan keylogger was a malicious piece of software, this one logged all your keystrokes, sending them off in a file to whoever had