Page 22 of Override

“Skee.”

“He has security vulnerabilities.” I note. Mostly to myself but since I have him on the phone I will include him also.

“That sentence is exactly why I don’t trust you unsupervised.”

I reroute the first internal security call line while opening the Gallagher employee roster beside it.

Head of security:

Declan Murphy. Forty-two. Former private military contractor. Three ex-wives. Weak passwords.

Embarrassing, honestly.

Callum is still talking. “You are not physically entering that house.”

“That feels controlling.” I sing-song to him.

“Do not start with me.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Keaton.” In his full first name voice.

Interesting.

I crack my knuckles once while another rerouting script finishes compiling across the screen.

“Relax,” I tell him.

“You saying relax has historically made situations worse.”

Fair.

My cursor hovers over the Gallagher security network.

One click and the entire system will start eating itself alive. Temporary failures. Camera loops. Motion sensor glitches. Internal comm outages.

Nothing dangerous. Just enough chaos to require emergency repair. And when security calls for support—they’ll get me.

My pulse kicks once. Not nerves. Anticipation.

Callum must hear something in my silence because his voice drops dangerously flat. “Skee.”

I look back at the frozen frame of Maeve disappearing into the guest bathroom. Seven times in eight days. My mind is done pretending that's a coincidence. I click ENTER. Every monitor lights up instantly.

The Gallagher estate camera feeds begin blinking one by one across the screen while error messages flood the system.

Front gate offline. Motion detection failure. Internal feed corruption. North wing camera loop. Security lock desync.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

“Skee,” Callum snaps louder.

Somewhere inside the estate, alarms begin triggering one after another.

I go still in my chair while the entire Gallagher system spirals into chaos beneath my fingertips. And for the first time in weeks—I smile.

Not the polite fake versions Rachel keeps accusing me of using lately. A real one. Sharp. Alive. Dangerously satisfied. The kind that usually means I’m about to become someone else’s serious problem.