Page 156 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
She pushes past me, incredibly careful not to let her body brush against my suit, and walks straight out of the kitchen.
I stand there in the silence, staring blankly at the empty doorway.
I gave her space, exactly like I planned. I prioritized the company, exactly like I always do. So why does it feel like I just lost the most important war of my life?
I grab a black coffee, downing it despite the scalding heat, and march straight back to my office. If she wants professionalism,I’ll gladly give it to her. If she wants to do this completely alone, I’ll let her see just how incredibly cold it is outside the Unit.
Sitting down at my desk, I aggressively pull up the system diagnostics Asher has been reviewing. I need a problem I can actually solve—logic, clean code, something that definitively does what it’s told.
My phone buzzes with a text from Harper.
Harper: Hey big bro! Saw the article about the $50M funding! That is INSANE! I am so freaking proud of you guys. Also, tell Tessa to pick up her damn phone, she’s ignoring me. Is she okay?
I stare down at the illuminated screen. She’s ignoring Harper, too?
That doesn’t fit the regret theory. If she were regretting us, she’d be running straight to Harper, tearfully confessing and looking for an immediate escape route. Isolating from her best friend is entirely different. It’s highly protective.
She’s actively hiding something.
Ethan: She’s just swamped with the scaling strategy. We all are. I’ll tell her you checked in.
I toss the phone down and glance back up at my main diagnostic screen.
WARNING: Abnormal traffic detected in Sector 4 (Confessions DB). Origin: Unknown.
“Asher,” I mutter, instantly tapping my earpiece. “Are you seeing this traffic spike on the Confessions server?”
“I see it,” Asher’s voice comes through the comms immediately. “I’m trying to trace the packet origin. It looks exactly like a localized stress test, but I definitely didn’t authorize one.”
“Shut it down,” I order, welcoming the sharp distraction. “We can’t have any latency while Sterling’s auditors are actively watching our uptime.”
“Working on it… That’s incredibly odd,” Asher murmurs, the frantic clicking of his mechanical keyboard echoes over the line. “It’s bypassing the firewall using a legacy admin credential.”
“Whose credential?”
There is a heavy pause. “Mine.”
A sharp, icy prickle of dread that has absolutely nothing to do with Tessa shoots straight down my spine.
“Asher. Is that you or not?”
“Negative,” Asher replies, his voice tightening with stress. “I’m actively locked out of the node. Someone is mirroring my admin access.”
“Kill the port,” I order, jumping up from my chair. “Hard reset.”
“If I initiate a hard reset, we permanently lose the cache for the last hour. The user data?—”
“Do it,” I bark. “Right now.”
I watch my screen flicker aggressively as Asher kills the connection. The red warning banner instantly blinks out, replaced by a wall of black.
“Status?” I demand.
“Containment achieved,” Asher says, sounding slightly breathless. “But Ethan… that wasn’t a system glitch. That was a highly sophisticated probe. Someone was actively testing the door handle to see if it was unlocked.”
“Sterling?” I ask, my mind racing. “Auditing us without warning?”
“Maybe,” Asher says hesitantly. “But usually, auditors announce themselves or leave a digital footprint. This felt predatory.”
