“And you’ve seen your sister? You’re sure they have her?”
Izzie nodded. “Before you arrived, they’d been allowing me to spend a few hours every day with her.” A small grin sneaked out. “Athena can be a bit stubborn and willful when she’s upset. They discovered that she’s far more agreeable when we get to spend time together.”
Kairo nodded and seemed to stare at the nearly empty bottle of water in his hands as if he were thinking over everything Izzie had told him. When he looked at Izzie again, his expression was twisted. His eyebrows were arched and his nose was wrinkled. “And you want me to hack into your company and steal this encryption token?”
“From my understanding, it’s more of an algorithm that keeps changing the token so that even if the token is hacked once, it wouldn’t be reusable because the algorithm has come up with a new token already. At least, that’s how it was explained to me by the company programmers.” His smile had returned. Kairo was picking up on this very nicely. He was going to do great. But there was one catch.
He glanced over at the door for a second and then to Kairo. There would be at least one guard standing on the other side, and he could not afford to be overheard. Not for this part. Scooting to the very edge of the bed, Izzie lowered his voice and leaned as close as he could to Kairo.
“That’s what they want. If it’s possible, I’d really like you to create a good fake. I don’t want to hurt the livelihood of all those customers who have trusted my family’s company just to save my own skin. That’s too selfish. But if your fake could fool them for a while, it would buy you some time to escape with Athena. Get her somewhere safe.”
Kairo jerked backward, surprise and confusion replacing his skepticism. “And where are you in this escape?” he inquired sharply, though he did keep his voice low.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me,” Izzie quickly said, waving both of his hands at Kairo. “I’m hoping to be right there with you and Athena, but if you needed someone to stay behind and create a distraction or if you can save only one person, I want to be clear that you need to protect my sister. I’m hiring you to protect Athena. Not me.”
“And you realize that if you stay behind, they will fucking kill you? You get that, right?” Kairo demanded.
Izzie’s throat tightened, making it impossible to squeeze out any words, so he nodded his head while smiling at Kairo. He had no desire to die. He was twenty-nine years old. While he might never be as innovative as his father or as brilliant as his sister, everyone said that he had his mother’s kindness, and the world could use some more kindness.
Plus, he wanted to know what it was like to fall in love—the good and the bad. In his life, he’d climbed mountains, skydived, raced cars, sailed around the Pacific islands, and even gone swimming with sharks. It seemed like it would be a horrible oversight in his life to never get to experience what it was like to love and be loved.
“I would really like to live, but I know my parents expected me to protect my sister always, and right now, I’m doing a rather horrible job of it,” Izzie explained when he got his wayward emotions under control. “But that’s why I’m looking to hire the best.” He reached out and patted Kairo on the shoulder. “Think of this as just another job interview, Mr. Jones. My goals are to supply Vanko with the ‘encryption token’ that he wants,” he said, making the quotation marks with his fingers, “and I want you to save Athena. The bonus would be saving me, too.”
“Except for this job interview, I’m finding out what the requirements areafterI’ve been forced to take the job,” Kairo snarled.
“I know. This is awkward. I wanted to send an intermediary to make the proposal to you, but then Vanko said no because if you turned the job down, you’d know that Athena and I had been kidnapped. He said he’d have to kill you and we’d still need to find a proper hacker.” Izzie huffed. “No one should be killed just because they don’t want to accept a job. That’s ridiculous. I—”
He stopped talking the second Kairo held up a finger for silence. Had he heard something? Izzie stared at the door while straining to hear any sounds of movement from the hall, or that someone had approached and was now listening to their private conversation.
But there were no sounds. The normal creaks and groans of the old house.
The winds sweeping from the mountain peaks and buffeting the sides of the building.
Nothing else.
He turned his attention to Kairo to find that he had lowered his finger and was holding his face in one hand.
“Did you hear something? I don’t hear anything,” Izzie whispered.
“No. I need a moment.” Kairo’s words were muffled by his hand.
He got it. This was a lot to take in. The poor guy had just woken up from being drugged for two days. He was in danger, expected to save people,andwork up a brilliant hack. It was a lot to take in.
Izzie reached out and gently patted Kairo on the shoulder again. “Don’t worry. I have complete confidence in you.”
Kairo lifted his head and glared at him. “How did you even find out about me? I know we’ve never met.”
A low chuckle escaped Izzie as he straightened. “Oh, that. You and your friends helped a friend of mine, Nicholas Theodorou. He was the one who was being blackmailed.”
“He told you about that?” Kairo gasped. “He was the one who was worked up about his secret getting out!”
“Yes, Nick is the type to freak out first and then laugh about it later. He didn’t tell me all the details. Besides, Nick can’t keep a secret to save his soul. It’s kind of amazing that anyone could blackmail him in the first place.” Izzie paused to ponder his old friend Nick for a second before giving a shrug and smiling at Kairo, whose mouth was hanging open. “Anyway, Nick told me how you and your friends all helped to steal back his secrets and protect him. He particularly stressed that you hacked into the guy’s computer. All neat and tidy.” He brushed his hands together as he finished.
“And now you expect me to fix this kidnapping problem you’re in the middle of?”
Izzie smiled and nodded. “I’m sure you’ll have this figured out in no time. You’re the professional. But don’t worry, I’m happy to jump in and help you in any way that I can. This will be a piece of cake.”
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