Mercy (Somerset University #3) - Ruby Vincent Page 0,4
house demanded to celebrate it in style. The seniors were moving on and almost one-third of the Sallys and Sams were set to walk across the stage.
Aiden Connelly would not be one of them. He was in his fourth year of university. It just so happened that a prodigy like him easily juggled football, the presidency, friends, and an accelerated five-year program to earn his bachelor’s and master’s in mathematical finance. I had one more year with Aiden, and it was my last chance to discover the truth about him and the night he sent Sawyer to the van.
“Val, do any of the Sams have a peanut allergy?” Palmer poked her head out of the kitchen. “Teagan and I were thinking Thai.”
Teagan.
I had to learn the truth from Aiden because it definitely wasn’t coming from Teagan. She managed to earn readmission to our university due to unforeseen circumstances forcing her to leave. Sally house couldn’t turn her down after the admissions office welcomed her with open arms, so for the last six months, the very girl who recruited me lived upstairs in her old room. And the entire time she stuck to her story.
I cocked a brow. “You’re supposed to be thinking sour cream chips and soda.”
“I forget to turn the oven off one time—”
“Three times.”
“—and you ban me from cooking. Well, I’m going to show you my skills, Moon. Get ready for this.”
“You have to get me ready for something else,” I replied. “Three Sams have peanut allergies.”
She nodded. “It’s cool. I can make shrimp lettuce wraps sans nuts.”
“You can wrap deez nuts!” one of the girls shouted from the kitchen.
They busted up in there, howling so loud I felt my phone before I heard it. I fished it out and checked the screen.
“Hey, Maverick.”
Maverick.
His parents, family, and the boys called him Rick or Ricky. I’d always call him Maverick. I couldn’t help it. The way my tongue caressed the name and rolled it from my lips was almost too intimate for company.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Is robotics practice over?”
“I’m not at robotics. I’m in the library.” The hushed tone made sense. “Val, you have to get over here— Or I’ll come to you.”
My brows drew together. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m in, Val. In Aiden’s file. I hacked it.”
MAVERICK
I paced the study room. Back and forth in the closet of a space—interrupted by my shooting to the desk to check again.
Val arrived exactly twenty minutes after I called her. She blew in on a cloud of rose perfume and kissed me, soothing my agitation the way only she could.
“You did it?” she asked, turning to the laptop. “It’s been months. How did you get in?”
“I’m sorry it took so long.” I pulled out a chair for her to sit. “I know how serious this is, but I had to go slow. Use outside networks. Mask my IP address. Consult three different hackers. One of whom didn’t speak English.”
Val rubbed the back of my neck. She knew the struggles I had butting against the first program I didn’t know how to hack. It was long nights at my desk while she rubbed my shoulders, testing how long I’d hold out until my need for her pulled me to bed. After she fell asleep, I went back to my desk to wrestle with the file again.
“I’ve never seen code like this,” I said. “The protections he had on this file were smart. Adaptive. One wrong move and it’d alert Aiden to an intrusion, plus learn my technique to shut me out permanently. I had to invent the code to crack this thing, Val.” Blowing out a breath, I drew the laptop to us. “Patenting it will bring us from ridiculously wealthy to obscenely wealthy. Adam’s getting diamond-studded sneakers for his birthday.”
She laughed. “I don’t know about Adam, but Mommy wouldn’t mind some diamonds.”
Despite myself, I grinned. No matter the circumstance, Val lit up my worst days. “I’ll get you a whole truckload. It’ll make up for what I found.”
Her cheeriness leeched away. “It’s blackmail, isn’t it?” she croaked. “All of the secrets he collected, used to silence people like he did with Ezra and get rid of them like Sawyer. It’s the only reason I can think of for why Sawyer refuses to admit he was hauled off in that van against his will.”
“No— I mean, yes.” I tapped the pad, bringing up the file. “The secrets he collected on the Sams are in here,” I confirmed. “But what he’s doing with