not a look that suited him well. And as much as I detested McMann’s smug face, I didn’t want to miss his reaction to any of what was coming.
Dre’s father was looking at him. “What are you talking about, Dre?”
I waited for Dre to catch my eye before taking over. “As we speak, a story is spreading across social media about how Jackson McMann used a back door within Promethean, the program that he helped create, to spy on Dre and me for the purpose of stealing and leaking our private photographs and conversations. In addition, he used the same back door to data mine the accounts of all Promethean users in order to influence the election.”
Nora was first to her phone, followed quickly by Jose. My parents and Dre’s parents both still looked perplexed. But it was the look on McMann’s face that made it all worthwhile. The smirk was gone, replaced by the shock of someone who had believed he was untouchable. If I’d had a camera out, I would have captured the moment he realized we had beaten him. As it was, his expression will live in my memory forever.
“It’s all lies,” McMann said. “Unsubstantiated lies, and no one will believe you.”
Dre shrugged. “They don’t have to believe us. It’s your voice doing the explaining.”
Dre’s mother grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him around to face her. “Andre Santiago Rosario! What did you do?”
“Yes, Dean,” my mother said. “Explain yourself immediately.”
I felt bad that I’d kept this from her, and I was relieved to finally stop keeping secrets. “Dre and I attempted to tell you that McMann was responsible for the leak, but you wouldn’t act without proof, so we devised a plan to prove it ourselves. Tamal discovered that the Promethean app was what had given McMann access to hack my phone, and we used that knowledge against McMann. Even after we had secured our phones, we knew he could still access our conversations on Promethean. In fact, we were counting on it.”
McMann looked truly confused at this point, and I almost felt bad for him, but not really.
“That Scooby-Doo shit?” Dre said. “All an act. We played you. You thought Mindy was trying to lift your phone and that you were so clever preventing it, but she wasn’t taking anything. She was leaving a wireless mic behind.”
Mindy curtsied and then gave McMann the finger. “You’ve still got my vote, though.”
“You also believed we wanted your phone so that we could hack it,” I said.
Tamal chuckled. “Like I need the physical device to do that. All your computers are connected to the Wi-Fi.” He looked at my mother. “Governor Arnault, would you be interested in a spreadsheet of all the senators Mr. McMann believes owe him favors?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Tamal, but thank you anyway.”
Tamal offered up a shrug. “If you want to take a peek at it, I dumped all his files to LeakBarrel, so you or the FBI or whoever can sort through them.”
McMann was stuttering, fumbling for the words to deny our accusations, but the proof was already out there.
“You were so confident you had us that all we needed to do was stand there and allow you to incriminate yourself. It was far easier than I expected.” I stood in front of McMann, unable to hold back my triumphant smile. “Would you like to withdraw from the race now or wait until after the debate?”
McMann’s skin had gone pale, and his assistant was trying to show him something on her tablet. But he kept looking from me to Dre, his brain attempting to understand the full scope of his loss and to work out where everything had gone so wrong. After a tense moment, he shoved past us and took off down the hall.
“Love wins, asshole!” Dre called after McMann as he fled.
Dre
I CANNOT TELL a lie. Watching Jackson McMann run away after we dropped the truth on him was one of my favorite things ever. I don’t know how many laws we broke, hacking his computer and recording him without his permission, but either my dad or my boyfriend’s mom was definitely gonna be president, so I figured we’d get through this without a felony record.
When they tried to show us to our seats, Dean made some noise until we were seated together. I guess now that our relationship was out in the open, he wasn’t willing to go back to hiding, and I was not