These actions he’d taken with Mackenzie could break him or make him, but of course, it wasn’t about him. Sometimes the door God opened for a person to walk through had more to do with the greater good.

“I’m going to go outside so I won’t disturb you.”

“I can imagine who you’re calling at this hour, so don’t. Besides, I already know stuff.”

That got his attention. He stopped pacing. Did he want to know? “Like what?”

“DARPA.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “I could see them working with Hanstech. Drones. AI. But what’s the project?”

He moved to sit next to her and looked at her screen. She turned it away. “You can’t call your people, Alex. You call them, the cybercriminal will find out, and I don’t have a handle on this yet. I need to shut this hacker down before he can hurt anyone else.”

Alex tucked his cell away—for the moment. He would learn as much as he could first. Then . . . Sorry, Mackenzie, I have to inform the authorities. Why did it feel like he was using her instead of helping her?

She would hate him when this was over.

TWENTY-SIX

It is you . . .

Mackenzie rubbed her arms and stared at the code rippling across her laptop. Waves of nausea rolled through her at the thought of what she’d done—breaking into the system, through the security parameters even after she gained access via her covert connection.

She wasn’t part of the company. Not on the board. Not an official employee. But she was a Hanson, and, in a way, this was her company too. Her sister, her family, had been threatened. She didn’t need to keep justifying her actions for saving the family name. Saving lives.

But she’d had to know, and now she could confirm that her past had risen up to attack her personally. Her family and . . . friends. She glanced at Alex. She had to stop Nebulous 2.0 before he could harm anyone else.

Hadn’t she known, deep down, that this attack was him all along?

“I’ll come for you when you least expect it.”

And she hadn’t expected it. She’d been counseled not to worry about him. She should have known better. And now he wanted to inflict his own personal brand of revenge. Payback for the money she and Julian lost him years ago—and much, much more. She admitted she’d been terrified those days would come back to bite her.

And Julian had been scared at the carnival. He’d known who the threat was from. The hidden message must have said as much, and she’d been too stunned to recognize he’d left a hidden message for her.

Alex leaned in close and peered over her shoulder at the laptop. “You said I can’t call the agency because he’ll know. Does that mean . . .”