Page 28 of Twisted Enemy
White hat hackers follow the law. They only break into systems they’re allowed to test—companies that offer bounties for finding vulnerabilities in their code or publicly available software.
I wouldn’t have nearly as much money to hand over to Da. But my father hasn’t much appreciated the dosh I’ve funneled to him for the past six years. As a mob boss, hecan’tacknowledge my gifts publicly, but he’s never even thanked me in private, not one single time.
Flexing my fingers, I stretch my neck before I settle back in front of my computer. I’ve never considered online life on the legal side of the fence.
I just have to figure out what that looks like. How to become the best in the world at doing it. And how to find a team that thinks exactly the way I do.
My fingers start typing to catch up with my mind.
12
COLE
Idon’t know who invented the idea of the mid-afternoon full-family meal known as Sunday Roast, but they should be executed in the most painful way possible. On second thought, they must be long dead. So their corpse should be dug up, their bones ground to dust, and the dust dumped at sea. During a fucking hurricane.
“You’ve been a naughty boy, Cole,” my mother-in-law chides, walking her fingers up my arm before she chucks my chin. “Keeping our little Katie from us.”
I watch Kate’s entire body tighten at the shortening of her name I’ve never heard her use.
Utterly oblivious to her daughter’s response, Orla continues with a pathetic little pout. “We haven’t heard a word about your honeymoon. All I know is you must have gone someplacemarvelous, if you had to miss the wedding reception we held in your honor. Come now. I want all the details.”
I think:I tied my wife to the St. Andrew’s cross in my basement and made her come so hard she forgot how to say her name.
But I repeat the convenient lie Kate told her sister weeks ago: “We spent a few days in Paris, Mrs. Lynch.” I dart a vindictive glance to Barry at the head of the table. He’s just shoveled half a lamb into his mouth. “My clients keep me too busy for more than that.”
“Please.” Orla Lynch bats her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at me. Her face is covered with some sort of thick makeup she must think hides the scar above her upper lip. “Call me Mother.”
I don’t use that word for the woman who actually gave birth to me. I’m not about to haul it out for the aggressive harpy I’m only tied to by marriage.
When I don’t reply, Orla bares her teeth in something that’s probably meant to be a smile. “Katie…” she says. My wife doesn’t look up from studiously folding her linen napkin into a one-inch square. “You haven’t said a word about the lovely wedding your father paid for.”
Kate offers a sullen one-shoulder shrug toward her grandmother, who sits across from her at this table from hell. “Like Granny taught me. If I don’t have anything nice to say…”
Fionnula Lynch tuts softly. I take a sip of water, using the motion to study her across the table. Her face is pale, her lipstick much too bright. I never should have given Helen Watson the day off. Or, at least, I should have hired another nurse to accompany us on the hour-long drive to Baltimore.
Orla’s fork clatters onto her plate. “Katie, why do you have to be so nasty? Your father and I give and give and give until webleed, but it’s never enough for you.”
“Maybe you give the wrong thing,” Kate says, dipping each individual word in acid.
Orla appeals to her husband. “Barry, dear. Make her stop.”
“Katie…” Barry says, his warning glance punctuated by a half-swallowed belch. He follows up with, “Pass the roasties.”
Kate doesn’t comply. But Breagha collects the bowl of potatoes and brings it around to her father, setting the china in front of him as if it’s a gold ingot. “Good girl,” Barry says before he glares at Kate.
I don’t have time for this sort of grappling. I’ve promised projects to three of my top-tier clients before Monday. With the start of a new week, Tarasov is certain to add pressure to the scant seven days he gave me to gut Lynch. And Lynch himself will likely send me home with a new project or ten. Plus, I have to decide whether or not to feed my voracious blackmailer next week, before his month-end deadline.
Sunday Roast cannot end soon enough.
Orla makes a show of looking at her diamond-encrusted watch before she frowns at an untouched place setting on the table, next to Breagha. “Honestly,” she says with a sniff. “I wonder what can be keeping our special guest?”
“Not too special, Mam,” Kate points out. “We started eating without them.”
Orla snaps, “We couldn’t let the lamb dry out.” She presses the back of her hand to her forehead. “I think I feel a migraine coming on.”
Back at her seat, Breagha frowns. “Should I get your tablets, Mommy?”
Kate rolls her eyes—either at her sister’s little-girl voice or her mother’s attention-gathering headache; I can’t be sure.
