Page 38 of Shattered Veil

Now...“Huh?”

“To start every morning. Dad said he starts at eight.”

“Eight is fine.”

“What time do you get here?”

“That...changes.” I toss the towel and turn away, facing a problem I’ve been having for months.

Sleeping. My mind is a running engine. I can’t shut it off. I eventually fall asleep but it’s never for very long. Which is why I agreed to Trace, who I need more as a driver than a bodyguard.

“Where’s your office?” Ella asks.

“Next door.” I push a button and steer her through the secret panel that opens to my very utilitarian office.

Ella wanders to the large plate-glass window overlooking my datacenter filled with servers and storage units, her face in awe.

“What are you? IBM?” she jokes.

“You’re not the first person to compare what we have to IBM.”

“That makes me feel...smart.”

“You are smart,” I correct her, forcibly. “The way you speak and carry yourself.”

“Yale will be proud.”

Fuck, I almost forgot that. My brothers and I tout our Ivy League educations and here I accidentally have a contender for top grad working for me. I’m about to ask her something about Yale when my office door flies open and Shane busts in like he usually does.

“Yo, Maverick, Sectors 1 and 2 aren’t reporting.”

I go still when Shane calls me by my code name. I need to remind him and the others in my command center to nix that with Snow around.

I step aside and let Shane see Ella and his face drops. “Errr.”

“Maverick?” She catches on. “Wasn’t he a fighter pilotfor the Navy?”

Shane and I exchange glances. She must not know her father goes by Iceman. The first correct thing that man did. Kept his sins out of his daughter’s head, so she can’t be kidnapped for intel.

Thinking about her getting kidnapped makes my vision blur with fury.

The global select team, including me, were never able to hack Iceman’s code. There wasn’t enough time, and it was too complicated. But enough tools and tips were shared for geniuses to keep at it.

Rather than churning endless nights trying to hack it, I carved my own foothold. IhiredIceman and will give him projects that will reveal his code. Even if it’s in pieces.

“It stands for being an innovator, a rebel,” I say, covering myself.

She nods. “Oh right. In the literal sense. Cool.”

When she turns back to the window, I punch Shane in the arm.

“Sectors 1 and 2, you said?”

“Aye.”

Ella turns around and her eyes dance up and down Shane’s frame, igniting the kind of jealous rage I thought I was immune to.

“Anything I can do to help?” she asks. “Whatever it is you’re talking about?”