Chapter 5
Gemma
I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. When that happens, you
discover your talents fast..
I was a natural with computers. When I was fifteen, I found my way to hacking.
By the time I graduated high school, I could get past any firewall, find any back door in any program.
I built a crew, and got revenge on my dad and all the big supernatural mafia families the best way I knew how.
By screwing with their money.
That was my secret. The business I started way back then.
Once I figured out my way into underworld family bank accounts, it was easy to move a few thousand dollars here and there. Cut into the profits they got from selling weapons and drugs and move it around, so schools, libraries, and hospitals suddenly had anonymous donations.
I never made waves. I never took anything large enough to make
anyone suspicious.
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But soon enough, I knew my way around all of their businesses, all their shell companies, their money laundering methods.
Of course, they did eventually notice what I was doing. But none of them ever found me. I was too good for that.
They only knew me by my hacker name, MOONL16H7–or Moonlight, for those who didn’t feel like typing out all those
numbers.
Throughout college, my crew grew and thrived.
I started taking orders for things like testing security systems and helping people recover money that their less honest family
members had cheated them out of.
I was on the verge of building an empire.
Then Dad died, Mom got sick, and the debt collectors came. I had
to come up with a lot of money, and I had to do it instantly, or me
and Mom would’ve been killed.
So, when the godfather of werewolves and crime, Donovan Blackwell, offered marriage to his grandson–the man I was secretly already in love with–I jumped on it. Who wouldn’t?
Once I was married, I walked away from everything.
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Zina reached out, but I was so focused on getting Casslan to love me that I ghosted her.
Three years passed. I let all my dreams die except one: Cassian.
Turns out, that dream was more of a nightmare.
Zina leaves the room for a second and comes back with her
laptop. Her fingers fly over the keys, the tapping like music to my
ears. Then she turns the screen toward me.
My eyes fly over the series of letters and symbols. It’s as easy as
reading a children’s book for me, even though I haven’t laid eyes
on code in three years.
“That’s a firewall,” I said.
Zina grinned. “Yeah. One you know inside and out. But it’s been
giving me a shit–ton of grief. I’m supposed to figure out who keeps getting information through this firewall, and I’ve failed this job twice. If I fail again, my rep is in the trash can.”
She makes big puppy eyes at me. “You won’t let that happen to your best friend, will you?”
I can feel the old excitement growing in me. To feel my fingers
tapping the keys, my brain whirring to solve a problem, a puzzle
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that no one else has been able to.
10 min left
Some people climb mountains or jump out of planes to get a rush, but that isn’t what gets my blood pumping.
This is my thing.
Tech. Code. Sneaking in and taking something that someone told
me I can’t have.
No one can stop me, either. Not my father, and not Reyna. In this one thing, I am better than her.
I almost reach for the computer, but my hands clench together in
my lap and it’s like I’m frozen.
For some reason, this more than anything else felt like giving up on my marriage. Giving up on ever being loved by Cassian.
This is really and truly leaving behind the last three years of my life and going back to what I once thought it would be. What I once thought I would be.
Zina can obviously see the battle in my eyes. She shrugs casually
and turns her laptop back toward her.
“That’s all right. I understand if you aren’t up for it. Things in our
world change so fast, being out for three years is like never being
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in at all.”
This bitch. She always has known how to get to me.
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She drags the computer away from me and it slides slowly across the table. I watch it, and it’s like I can feel her dragging everything I
ever wanted away along with it.
I know Zina can see the longing on my face because she lifts an
eyebrow. “Well? Your old life is calling, Moonlight. Are you going to do something about it? You could stop being a secret wifey and
become a notorious hacker again. Doesn’t that sound amazing?”
I reach out and snatch the computer. Zina laughs. But as I look
down at the screen, I frown.
“Wait. This job is for Nautilus.” I look up and meet Zina’s eyes.
She’s grinning so big it’s a little off–putting, like she’s a crazy
clown.
Nautilus is owned by the Smokewind Pack, too. But not by
Cassian. By Adrian. His uncle–not an old uncle, but a young hot one, only about five years older than Cassian.
He’s also the person Cassian hates the most in the world.
“That’s right,” Zina says sweetly. “How would you like to get paid the big bucks to do some work for Cassian’s most hated rival?”
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