POV Eric
I didn’t have time to think about the conversation with Floris on the rooftop—her stories about normal families and dead parents, that look in her eyes when I mentioned never having a childhood.
Because at 2:47 AM, my phone lit up with alerts that made my blood run cold.
Someone had breached my system. Again.
I’d been awake for eighteen hours straight, surviving on espresso and corporate-grade paranoia, trying to trace digital footprints that kept disappearing like smoke. Whoever was doing this knew exactly what they were looking for and how to cover their tracks.
“Fuck,” I muttered, watching another trace route dead-end in a VPN maze. “This is professional work.”
By morning, I was running on fumes and fury. When Sia and Floris walked into my office, I probably looked like I’d been hit by a truck driven by insomnia and rage.
“We have a problem,” I announced without preamble.
“Good morning to you too,” Floris said, because apparently she’d never learned when to keep her mouth shut.
“Someone’s been leaking classified information to TimeCorp. Trade secrets, client lists, upcoming acquisitions.” I pulled up the breach analysis on my screen. “It’s been going on for weeks.”
Sia went pale. “How much have they taken?”
“Enough to put us at a serious disadvantage in the European market. Enough to cost us millions in lost contracts.” I looked between them. “I need you both working on this. Now.”
“What exactly are we looking for?” Floris asked, already moving toward the computer terminal.
“Digital breadcrumbs. Access logs. Anyone with the clearance and stupidity to sell us out.” I pulled up the security protocols. “Start with network traffic analysis, unusual data transfers, anything that doesn’t belong.”
Floris cracked her knuckles and dove into the code like she was born for this. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up system logs and running diagnostic algorithms that even impressed me.
“The breach is sophisticated,” she said, pulling up network analysis charts. “Whoever’s doing this is using advanced encryption, rotating proxies, even timing their access to avoid detection patterns.”
“Can you trace it?”
“I’m trying to isolate the source, but they’re good. Really good.” She pulled up another screen, running deep packet analysis. “But everyone leaves traces if you know where to look.”
I moved closer to watch her work, and that’s when it happened. That strange, unfamiliar twist in my chest as I watched her dissect the breach with surgical precision.
She was in her element—this was what she’d been trained for at MIT, what she was genuinely brilliant at. Not the corporate mind games or psychological warfare, but pure technical skill applied with deadly focus.
“There,” she said, highlighting anomalous data patterns. “The leak is coming from inside our own VPN. Someone with legitimate access is copying files during maintenance windows when security logging is reduced.”
“Smart,” Sia observed.
“Very smart. But not smart enough.” Floris’s eyes were bright with the thrill of the hunt. “I can set up a honeypot, trap them the next time they try to access our systems.”
Watching her work was doing something weird to my insides. Something warm and completely fucking unwelcome. I’d felt satisfaction when assets performed well before, but this was different.
This felt… personal. Pride. That’s what this was. I was proud of her.
The realization hit me like cold water.
“How long will the honeypot take to set up?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
“Give me two hours. When they try to access our system again, we’ll have them.”
“Excellent,” I said, meaning it more than I should have.
She looked up at me with those amber eyes, and something passed between us. Recognition that she’d just proven herself indispensable in ways that had nothing to do with blackmail or her brother’s medical bills.
“We didn’t catch them yet,” she said modestly.
“No, but you will. I can see it in the way you’re approaching this.” That strange feeling in my chest intensified. “You’ve done enough for today. Get some rest.”
She nodded and left, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the competence and intelligence that made her so much more than just another desperate employee I could control.
I waited in her room for an hour, sitting in the chair by her window like I had every right to be there. Which I did—legally, contractually. But something about being there felt different this time. More intimate than invasive.
When her door finally opened, I started to stand. “Floris, I wanted to—”
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”
Her scream cut through the air as she spun around, and before I could process what was happening, her elbow connected with my face with the force of pure terror and excellent reflexes.
Pain exploded across my cheekbone. I staggered backward, hand flying to my face, tasting blood.
“What the hell, Eric!” she shouted, breathing hard. “You can’t just lurk in people’s rooms like some kind of corporate vampire!”
“I was waiting to talk to you,” I said, checking my fingers for blood. There was definitely blood.
“Ever heard of knocking? Or, I don’t know, basic human decency?”
I stared at her—wild-eyed, defensive, completely unrepentant about potentially breaking my face—and felt that strange warmth in my chest intensify.
She’d just elbowed me in the face, and somehow I was more turned on than angry.
What the fuck was wrong with me?