Playing the part of the dedicated night owl willing to sacrifice his evening for the sake of the job might score him a few brownie points, but this wasn’t about impressing Trendsetters’ upper management. There was only one reason he remained in this near-empty office. It was time he make a true attempt to enter the security division’s inner sanctum.

Today marked eight weeks since he’d started at Trendsetters. Call him cocky, but he’d figured by now he would be back in Virginia getting briefed on his next assignment. The fact that he hadn’t gotten past the damn door of the Security Department was in-fucking-conceivable.

There were only two people in Trendsetters’ Cybersecurity division tonight, but they hadn’t left the room unmanned for a second. Earlier in the evening, Daniel had downloaded malware to his desktop in an attempt to draw them out. He’d waited until one of them went to the restroom, then quickly deployed the malware and put a call in to security.

He had no way of knowing that, at the time, the remaining guy happened to be helping a Trendsetter employee who was working remotely. Daniel’s malware problem wasn’t considered a big enough issue to elevate it, so he’d had to wait for the employee who’d gone to the restroom. It was a completely wasted effort. Worse, it eliminated that option from his toolkit. If he employed the malware again security would most likely flag him for being careless.

Realistically, he knew his chances at breaching security tonight were nil, but Daniel still wasn’t ready to go home. Quentin was there. He’d done his best to avoid his “roommate” since running into him at the Latin dance club on Saturday. He knew the censure he’d get—the censure he deserved—and he wasn’t in the mood for it.

Earlier, before he’d decided to take a run at breaching the Security Department, he’d asked Samiah to dinner, even though he knew her Monday nights were earmarked for binge-watching the few television shows she allowed herself to watch. But she wasn’t watching Grey’s Anatomy tonight. She was having dinner with her parents who’d driven in from Houston. When she told him about her plans, he’d immediately started to mentally thumb through his closet, trying to figure out what he was going to wear. And then he realized that she hadn’t invited him to join her.