Chapter 22 The Hacker
Alistair’s eyes are cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins, but it’s the silence that really does the damage.
He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t throw the tablet across the room. He just lets the photograph sit there on the marble tabletop, a digital indictment of my character.
There’s no indication that he’s angry. He’s just looking at the picture, and I’m looking at it too. No matter how much I look at it, it paints an image. Julian’s hand is a breath away from mine. We look like a portrait of domestic bliss, two parents and a child out for a Sunday treat.
Plus, I genuinely thought I was scowling at Julian because of how repulsed I felt by his presence. But I’m not scowling in the picture. I don’t even look repulsed. I just look...like I’m longing.
"Why was he holding your hand, Emily?" Alistair finally asks. His voice is a low, jagged rasp that scrapes against my nerves. "And why was he even here? Did you think this café was private enough for a family reunion?"
He jabs a finger at the screen, tapping Julian’s face with enough force to make the glass click. It feels like he actually wants to punch the man through the screen.
He looks at Julian’s face on the screen again, and this time, he physically scowls. It’s like the more he looks at the picture, the angrier he gets.
"Why..." he starts, and then he goes quiet again, leaning back in his chair and watching me with the terrifying patience of a hunter. The smell of milk and cinnamon that I loved about the cafe suddenly seems to be suffocating me.
My first instinct is to snap back. I want to tell him that Julian is a parasite who wouldn’t take no for an answer. I want to point out that Alistair has a lot of nerve questioning my loyalty after the way his family treated me. I wanted to point out that it was only yesterday when he had doubted me and choked me, but I proved him wrong. I want to scream and ask him when he would ever give me the benefit of the doubt.
But I force my lungs to take a steady breath. Getting offended won’t find Lily. Also, I have to admit to myself that she did get taken under my supervision, and that alone is enough to make anyone angry. There’s also the fact that Alistair dotes on Lily, and everyone knows it. She’s important to him, and she’s gone. It’s hypocritical for me to be upset that he’s upset.
I look at the tablet, then at him. "I’m sorry, Alistair. I’m sorry that I lost her. I let my guard down for ten seconds, and someone took her. That’s a weight I’m going to carry for a long time." I take a deep breath. "But it hurts for you to imply that I used her as a cover."
I lean forward, matching his intensity. "I came here to meet Dr. Aris. You know that. Your grandmother gave me permission to bring Lily along because she wanted the fresh air. Running into Julian Thorne was a coincidence. A disgusting, unfortunate coincidence. He was harassing me, and I was trying to get away from him when the crowd surged."
Alistair’s jaw remains a hard, unyielding line of granite. He doesn’t look convinced. He looks like a man who has spent too much time in boardrooms where everyone is lying. He picks up the tablet again, his thumb hovering over Julian’s smirking face in the photo.
"Julian Thorne just happens to be at the same café as my wife and niece?" Alistair asks. His tone is dripping with a sarcasm that makes my skin prickle. "He just happened to hold your hand? A man you were engaged to last week? That’s a lot of coincidences for one afternoon, Emily. It looks more like a rendezvous that went sideways."
"If I wanted to meet him, I wouldn’t do it in the middle of Ring Road with your security detail standing ten feet outside the door. I won’t have brought Lily along either," I retort. "I’m not that stupid, and I certainly don’t have feelings for a man who cheated on me with my sister."
Before he can dig the knife in any further, the door to the security room opens and closes. Leo strides in. He’s holding a small portable drive and looking like he’s aged five years in the last hour. He stops at the table, nodding stiffly to Alistair.
"Sir, we’ve pulled the internal footage," Leo says. He sets a laptop down and hits play.
The screen shows the café from a high angle. There I am, sitting with Dr. Aris. Lily is happily munching on a cookie. The doctor leaves, and then the footage catches the moment Julian enters. You can see me physically recoil. You can see the way I try to move Lily away from him. It’s all there: the harassment, the crowd, and finally, the man in the surgical mask snatching Lily while Julian is busy being a nuisance.
Alistair watches the screen, his eyes tracking every movement. He takes the video back and plays it again. I see him take a deep breath, and his shoulders relax a little. But when he looks at me, his eyes and expression still remain cold. It’s like he’s looking at me, but he’s not looking at ME. He’s a man of data. The data says I’m telling the truth, but the fact remains that Lily’s is missing, and that happened while she was with me.
His phone begins to ring, the sharp, electronic trill cutting through the heavy atmosphere. He picks it up and looks at the caller ID, and his expression shifts into something more guarded. I already know it’s not good news.
"It’s Grandmother," he says.
He answers, and even from where I’m sitting, I can hear Celia’s voice. She’s frantic, a sharp contrast to the iron woman I saw at the estate. She’s asking about Lily, her voice cracking with a vulnerability that makes my stomach twist with guilt. Even if Celia hasn’t been the nicest to me, I can only imagine how panicked she must feel that Lily is missing.
Alistair’s voice turns remarkably gentle as he speaks to her. "I’ll bring her back, Grandmother," Alistair says. "I promise you. She’s fine. I’m handling it. Stay calm and wait for my call."
He hangs up, and the mask of the cold CEO is back in place. He looks at Leo. "Take Emily back to the estate. I want her inside the gates and under constant watch. I don’t want her out in the open until we know who took Lily."
"I’m not going back to sit in a room while she’s out there," I protest, stepping closer to him. "I can help. I’ve been helping. I posted flyers and-"
"That’s not going to help us find her."
"Then what will? What can I do? How can I help?"
Alistair doesn’t respond. The door of the cafe opens, and one of the body guards placces a black laptop on the table. Without looking at me, he opens the laptop, and his fingers begin to move across the keys with a speed that is dizzying to watch. Lines of code and maps of the city grid begin to scroll across his screen.
Leo leans in, whispering to me under his breath. "I think you should just give him a little space, Miss Emily."
I turn from the screen to look at Leo. "What’s happening?"
"Mr. Wolfe is currently hacking into the municipal surveillance grid. He’s bypassing the city’s security firewalls to get a live feed of the suspect’s escape route. It’s highly illegal and almost impossible to do without alerting the feds, but a man like Mr. Wolfe can pull it off in minutes. He doesn’t need to use flyers or look for a witness. He has the eyes of the city."
I turn my attention back to the the screen, mesmerized and terrified by the power Alistair wields. He’s literally bending the city’s infrastructure to his will.
"But...I can still help?"
The statement makes Alistiair stop for a second, his gaze shifting to mine.
"How exactly do you intend to help, Emily?" he asks. His voice is dry, nearly mocking. "By asking 500 people in the commercial district if they’ve seen her? Or brewing a tea to help us detect the kidnapper? You’re a healer. Stay in your lane. Security is not your area of expertise and that much is obvious."
The bite in his words sends a flush of pique through my chest. I’m not a child, and I’m not just a "healer" to be tucked away when things get messy. But I can see the wall he’s built around himself. There is no getting through to him when he’s in this mode.
"Fine," I snap, grabbing my bag. "I’ll leave. I’ll go back to the villa and wait for you to do your job. Just bring her home, Alistair. Please."
He doesn’t answer. He’s already back in the code.
The drive back to the Wolfe estate is silent and suffocating. Leo keeps his eyes on the road, and I keep mine on the window, watching the city go by and feeling like a complete failure. I’ve only been a Wolfe for a few days, and I’ve already managed to lose the light of the family.
When the car pulls through the massive iron gates and stops in front of the villa, I feel a sense of dread that is almost physical. I step into the house, the air smelling of lilies and old money. I walk toward the living room, but I stop at the threshold.
It’s a tribunal.
The Old Madam is seated in her high-backed chair, her hands clenched around the silver head of her cane. Beatrice is there, standing next to her husband, looking like she’s been waiting for this moment her entire life. Alistair’s parents, Arthur Sr. and Eleanor, are seated on the velvet sofa, their faces grim.
Beatrice is the first to rise. She doesn’t even wait for me to take a breath. She points a manicured finger at me, her eyes gleaming with a triumphant, ugly light.
"There she is," Beatrice says. Her voice carries through the room like a crack of a whip. "The girl who was so busy meeting her ex-boyfriend in secret that she let our Lily be snatched away. Mother, I told you she was a liability! She used our Lily as a prop to cover her tracks with Julian Thorne!"
I look at her, my heart thumping against my ribs. The trap is sprung, and I’m standing right in the center of it. Every pair of eyes in the room is looking at me with disgust, and today, Alistair isn’t here to stand in the way.