Page 24 of The Broker
She raises her head when I open the door. I see the defeated look in her eyes, and a fist squeezes my heart. “What happened?”
“I fucked up.” She pushes the laptop aside and wraps her arms around herself, the gesture oddly vulnerable. “I wanted to listen to music while I worked and couldn’t find your sound system. So, I connected my laptop to the Internet and listened while I worked.”
“Okay?” I’m not seeing the problem.
“I was online when I decrypted the files I found in the farmhouse, Dante. Revenant found out. I must have triggered an alert because he activated some malware and destroyed everything. My laptop is toast; I’m going to have to wipe it and do a complete reinstall. Your modem is compromised. Every device connected to the Internet needs to be reset to a factory default. Like I said, I fucked up.” Her voice is bitter and self-loathing. “All because I couldn’t work without music.”
“Hey, hey.” I settle next to her on the couch. “Stop that.” She’s being really hard on herself. “It was a mistake. We all make them.”
“It was a dumb rookie mistake. I should be better than that.”
“Again, will you stop that?” I look at her exasperatedly. “You were in bed with a migraine two days ago. Today, you found out that we’re likely in danger, and you and Angelica had to move into my house in a hurry. You’re in a new location; your routines are disrupted. You’re human, Valentina. All of that takes a toll.”
“You’re being nice to me again. It’s weird.” She takes a deep breath and hugs her knees to her chest. “There’s something else.” She doesn’t look at me. “Before everything shut down, the hacker opened a chat window to gloat that he caught me. But he didn’t refer to me by my handle.” She hands me her phone. “I managed to take this picture before everything got wiped.”
I look at her screen. The photo is blurry, but the words are readable.Nice try, Valentina. But you have to work harder to get the better of me.
It takes me a second to clue in. Then I do, and I go very, very still. Ice hardens my spine.
The fucker knows her name, and he wants us to know he knows it.
HethreatenedValentina. When I find him—and Iwillfind him—I am going to make him regret it.I’m going to make it hurt.
“Interesting.” I force myself to keep the rage from my voice and hand her back her phone. Valentina is notoriously touchy about it. Andreas picked her phone up when it beeped one day and got the glare of death, one that sent him backing away hastily from her. “Cocky bastard.”
“I don’t know how he found me.” She gives me a sideways glance. “Despite what you think, Iamcareful. I rarely post on the forums. I don’t reveal any identifying information about myself. I’m painfully aware it’s not just my safety I need to worry about. It’s also Angelica’s.”
I’m still furious. But not with her. I’m furious with the bastard who threatened her. “You want a drink?”
She gives me a startled look. “A drink?”
“After the day we’ve both had, a shot of whiskey sounds like a pretty good idea.”
“I’m too tired to attempt to fix the mess right now; I’m afraid I’ll make more mistakes. Getting drunk seems as good a thing to do as any.”
She gets to her feet and follows me up the stairs to the kitchen. She looks exhausted, and I should send her to bed. But I’m a bastard who’s greedy for her company and this quiet, shared moment. “Sit,” I tell her, pointing to the table. “What do you want to drink? I’ve got whiskey, as promised, or would you prefer wine?”
“A shot of whiskey is fine. No ice, please.”
She sits at the table. I hand her the drink and take the seat next to her. For a few moments, neither of us says anything. Then Valentina breaks the silence. “Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am. Maybe I’m a liability.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say bluntly. Valentina’s unshakable confidence in her hacking skills is one of my favorite things about her. “Enough with this nonsense. We couldn’t do half the things we do without you.”
“I fucked up an entire week’s work. I have another copy of the data from Verratti’s computer, but it’s going to take me days to decrypt it. I have to recreate everything I did, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve done it before. The computational time alone. . .” Her voice trails off. “I’ve lost my edge.”
“You hacked into all our accounts last week with laughable ease. You made us all look like idiots. You areterrifyinglytalented.” She opens her mouth to argue. “Take the damn compliment, Valentina.”
She gives me a faint smile. “Okay.” She takes a sip of her drink and makes a face. “I’m shocked you have whiskey in your home,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink. I thought you’d unwind with an espresso or something.”
“I’ll be up all night if I drink espresso now.” I’ll be up all night anyway, thinking of Valentina asleep in the bedroom on the level below, wondering if she’s wearing that pretty pink lingerie I saw her pack or if she sleeps naked. “I don’t drink very often.”
“Why not?”
There are a thousand glib answers I could offer. “I’m painfully aware that Roberto drank too much and hit you under the influence of alcohol. I don’t want to become my brother.”
“There’s very little risk of that happening,” she responds immediately. “You’re nothing like Roberto.” I don’t have time to dwell on what that means before she continues, “In any case, that was a long time ago, and it ended when Antonio killed your brother. The past has no bearing on the present.”
Guilt sears through me. I’ve never told Valentina the truth. That Antonio didn’t kill Roberto.