“Do we have a name?”
Quinn shook his head. “Not that I’ve found. They referred to each other as ‘my love’ or ‘dearest.’ ”
“That sucks. Of course, we can rule out her lover as the hacker,” Shane mumbled. He paced away from Quinn’s computer but didn’t go far, wandering aimlessly through what little open area there was, lost in thought.
“Why?”
“Well, if the hacker is the lover and she’s looking to expose his wife’s secret affair, then she’s already got all the emails. She could just send them all off to the press and sit back to wait for the fallout. Is there any way we can delete or protect the emails from the lover’s side as well? That way the hacker can’t get to them from Brenda’s account or her lover’s?”
Quinn’s mouth fell open. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Shane. It didn’t make any fucking sense. It was like he was ignoring everything that he’d told Shane. Or at least, it was like he was ignoring all the important parts so that he could do everything he could…to protect the mayor.
“Are you shitting me?” Quinn asked softly.
“No. We can protect this account from our end, but the hacker—”
“Screw the hacker. I say we release these emails to the media ourselves. Let’s fry the fucking mayor.”
Shane stumbled back a step and stared at Quinn in horror. Quinn’s heart gave an uncomfortable lurch in his chest. He’d been so sure that Shane would do the right thing. It had to be that Shane didn’t understand the full depth of what the man had done. He hadn’t read dozens of painful emails where Brenda detailed the lengths she had to go to in order to hide her bruises and other injuries from her kids and the entire city. That this woman who was constantly in the public eye was screaming out on the inside for help, but no one knew but that one person who loved her. Shane didn’t understand how she was trapped in his loveless, controlling marriage. The only things that Brenda Spring wanted were her kids and the woman she’d obviously loved for years.
Gerald Spring needed to pay.
“We were hired by the mayor to protect him. We swore to protect his privacy. We are not helping the hacker.” Shane said each sentence slowly and clearly as if Quinn was the one who had lost his mind.
“You’ve been hired by a criminal. He beat his wife! He threatened her. You want that man to be mayor of our city? You want that man to keep his kids? How do we know he’s not going to start beating them now that she’s not there to stand between him and the kids? Or maybe he has already?”
“We don’t have any proof.”
“Those emails are damn good proof that he’s a lying sack of shit who hurt his wife. You can’t possibly want to stand by that.”
“I’m honor-bound by the confidentiality agreement I signed with my client. The same agreement that you signed when you first stepped in this office!” Shane pointed out, lifting his voice for the first time.
“Fuck that contract!”
“I can’t just say fuck it. Spring could sue and I would lose my license, possibly even go to jail. It would destroy the agency. Ethan and I would lose everything. Hollis would be out of a job.” Quinn started to turn away from Shane, but Shane grabbed his shoulder. “This is the real world. I’m not Rowe. I don’t have friends with deep pockets who can get me out of trouble when I cross the line. I’ve got to follow the rules or lose everything and ruin a hell of a lot of lives in the process.”
Quinn knocked Shane’s hand away and stood up. His stomach churned and a part of him wanted to curl up into a ball. He didn’t like confrontation. He didn’t do shouting and arguing. He didn’t do people if he could help it.
But he became a hacker because he believed he could help. He was ecstatic to join Ward Security because he was helping with his skills. Rowe didn’t ask too many questions on the how and that worked for him.
Somewhere along the way, he’d come to believe that Shane was the same. That he was a good guy out there trying to help.
“How can you do nothing?” Quinn demanded, his voice barely lifting over a whisper.
“I’m not saying that we do nothing.” Shane took several steps back, giving Quinn space as he dropped his hands down to his sides. “I’m just saying that we have to follow the rules. Revealing his personal information when we’ve agreed to keep it confidential is illegal. We have to tread carefully for now. Stick to the case that we’ve been assigned to.”
This can’t be real.
The thought kept repeating in his head. He’d been so sure of Shane. The man was so straight and narrow. He felt like the type to fight for the little guy. That was everything that Hollis Banner stood for. Would Hollis have come to work for a guy who would look the other way when a bastard was clearly guilty of domestic abuse?