Still . . . should she tell him the rest? Since Alex had come this far with her, she shouldn’t hold back. “The cybercriminal told me he would come for me when I least expected it.” A chill crawled over her, and she hugged herself. “Now I wish I hadn’t said the words out loud. It makes it seem too real. I don’t want it to be him.”

“And you certainly didn’t expect this to happen. Even if it’s him, this has to be about more than personal vengeance. What did you cost him before?”

Mackenzie cleared her throat. “Millions of dollars.” Nausea erupted at the confession, the reminder. She pressed her hand against her midsection. “I had to end it, and I convinced my friend that we should go to the Feds, and he agreed. Things had taken a wrong turn and gone too far.”

Actually, they’d gone too far the moment she illegally hacked. Alex eased into the chair at the kitchen table. Yeah, now it seemed like he was getting it. She was accepting what she hadn’t wanted to think about.

“He went by Nebulous 2.0,” she said. “We used leetspeak to spell our names. His is complicated, so I won’t bother.”

“I know enough to know that leetspeak is a coded language. And you guys didn’t think you should stay away from someone who called themselves Nebulous 2.0?”

“We didn’t choose to work with him. He forced us into letting him join because he found us and threatened to expose us. So we didn’t have a choice.”

“It’s obvious he thought you were good, because he brought you into his grand scheme. And I’m leaning toward his involvement. I can easily understand why he doesn’t want you blocking his efforts now.”

“We don’t know it’s him. I hope it’s not.” Mackenzie feared the cybercriminal could mess with her records. Get her arrested somehow. She didn’t know what to expect with this guy. “Because if it’s him, he wants his money while destroying my family.”

Alex scraped a hand through his hair. “That’s what worries me the most, given the nature of the warning . . . that game . . .”

“I know where you’re going with this. You’re worried about what he might want from Hanstech that could earn him that kind of money. But we don’t know anything yet. That’s why I’m here. To find out.”

“It could be too dangerous.” Alex stood and started pacing.

She stepped in front of him, effectively stopping him in his tracks before he could wear a path on the old wood floor. “This is my family’s company. Who better to get in than me?”

“There are other avenues we can take.”