Alex sat down behind his desk on Wednesday morning with a smile on his face. Everything looked different. Everything looked better. He felt better, too — more awake, more alert, and more ready than he had in a long time. He opened up his laptop, logged into the system, and got ready to face what was sure to be a long day.

He knew why his world seemed so much brighter, of course. Everything was down to Jordan. Running into him had been a stroke of sheer luck, but Alex had to give credit where credit was due.

Everything in his life felt better — brighter and happier and just easier — since last night. Alex hadn’t laughed like that in years. He hadn’t been able to let go like that, lose track of time like that, since he’d left Ohio.

It had felt so good to just let loose and be a person again, just smile and relax and have some fun. Who wouldn’t want that, after all?

A shadow fell across Alex’s desk. He looked up and saw Chad, depositing a stack of folders into his in box. He wished he could say he was surprised, either by Chad’s appearance or by the sudden pit forming in his stomach.

Chad was smiling, a little, but his eyes were tight and his smile looked a little forced. “Hey, Alex.” Chad rested a hand on top of the folders. “Why don’t you come and get a cup of coffee with me?”

Alex frowned. “I just got here, Chad. I haven’t even checked my messages or anything yet.”

“Then you’ll do it even better with a cup of coffee, won’t you? Come on.” He put a hand on Alex’s arm and guided him to his feet.

Alex didn’t resist, although he did close his laptop and lock it up. He didn’t want to cause a scene. Guys who caused scenes lost jobs.

Once he got out to the elevator bank with Chad, though, he turned to his friend. He kept a smile on his face, just like Chad, but he gritted his teeth to speak. “What’s going on, Chad?”

“Not here,” Chad growled. “Downstairs.”

When they got to the cafeteria, they both got coffees and sat down at one of the tables. Alex’s skin itched. He didn’t want to get caught here. It wasn’t even eight-thirty in the morning. He was definitely slacking off, sitting around in the crowded cafeteria with Chad when he should be at his desk working.

“Okay, Chad, what’s going on? You know there’s got to be an absolute mountain of work, right? After the system outage last night, we’ve got to be drowning in it.”

Chad snorted. “You think? Why do you think the system went down, genius?”

Alex narrowed his eyes at Chad. Chad could sometimes be a jerk, especially in the mornings, but Alex didn’t need to sit there and take it from him like that. “They didn’t feel compelled to share that information with me. I’m not in IT, and I don’t need to know that kind of thing. I can only assume there was some kind of system failure. Maybe someone spilled coffee on one of the servers.”

Chad scoffed and sipped from his drink. He’d splurged and gotten one of those expensive fluffy drinks, but then again, Chad could afford to. It left a little foam mustache on his pale skin.

“Coffee on the servers. It’s cute that you think that happens. No. The issue was a virus. A trojan horse virus, uploaded by someone that seemed to be looking to give someone else, someone outside the bank, access to all of our systems.”

Alex gasped. He didn’t have to ask how Chad knew. Chad knew because his dad was an executive vice president, the same way he knew everything. “That’s awful! Did they get to it in time?” He almost felt guilty about enjoying his time off with Jordan while the bank was being threatened like that.

“We hope so. But that’s why they wanted everyone out of the bank. They wanted to make sure no one could interfere with the process while they scrubbed the virus out of the system.” He raised an eyebrow at Alex. “Now why do you think someone would target our systems, Alex?”

“Presumably because we’re a big bank, and we’ve got a few trillion dollars worth of assets under management.” Alex sat back to study Chad. “This isn’t exactly rocket science, you know.”

“Hm. Sometimes I forget just how young you really are.” Chad scratched at his chin.

Alex rolled his eyes. “I’m two years behind you, you giant dork. What’s really on your mind?” He gulped from his coffee.

Chad sighed. “Do you think the hackers might have been after something besides something other than our assets? Something like, say, information?”

When Alex just gave him an irritable look, Chad pressed on. “Look. It’s no secret the bank has landed in the media because we’ve been backing some projects that have gotten some bad press. Like the DAPL, for example, or a company that’s started drilling in the national parks up in Alaska.”

Alex recoiled, just a little bit. “And you think the hackers were hacktivists? Environmental hacktivists?”

Chad scowled and wagged a finger at Alex, but he dropped his voice and leaned forward. “The term is terrorists, Alex. Environmental terrorists.” He sat a little straighter. “And you should know — I’ve been doing some research into your boy Jordan Davenport.”

Alex tilted his head to the side. He didn’t know if that would make it seem like the room wasn’t spinning anymore, but it was worth a try. “Oh my God, how do you even know his last name?”

“I asked the bartender at that dive bar you went into last night. Pro tip, by the way — don’t go there. Don’t let anyone see you going in there, or coming out of there. My God, man, it’s as seedy a dung heap as Boston has ever seen. I thought they cleared that kind of place out of here before we were even born, back when they turned Scollay Square into Government Center.”

Chad gave an exaggerated shudder. “And before you get your panties into a twist about me having gone in there, yes, I followed you. I didn’t start following you, but I caught sight of you when you caught up with that creep, and I knew you’d decided not to listen to me, so then I knew I had to do some research.

“What I learned definitely outweighs any qualms you might have about me trying to figure out who my friend was running around with.” Chad sipped from his coffee again, giving Alex a hard look over the rim. “For one thing, you know he’s an eco-terrorist, right?”

“I know he’s an activist. I know he’s got strong feelings about immigration, for one thing. That doesn’t make him a terrorist, and it sure as hell doesn’t make him a hacker. He can’t even figure out how to turn the do not disturb off on his phone.”

Alex bit his tongue and hid his hands under the table. He didn’t need Chad to see him wipe the sweat off of them. “Are we done here?”

“Did you know he was one of the people leading the effort to get the City of Boston to pull their pension funds out of Charles River Bank? Because I know your funds took a hit.”

Alex ground his teeth. “They took a small hit, but it wasn’t a big deal because I made up for it when I brought in Charlotte, North Carolina’s pension funds. And yeah, I knew he was involved. I didn’t know he’d organized it, but I knew he was involved with it, and I know he’s proud of it.”

He didn’t point out to Chad that he hadn’t told Jordan about his involvement with the city’s pension funds. He himself didn’t put any of his funds in pipeline projects, because he didn’t trust them. He didn’t want to give Chad the ammunition right now.

“Oh that’s cute, it really is.” Chad’s lip curled. “And when they ask you, during your exit interview just before security escorts you from the building, why you didn’t kick this dude to the curb as soon as you found out he was involved, what are you going to tell them? ‘Oooh, he was just so dreamy I couldn’t bring myself to do it?’ ‘Well, you know, I thought about it, but then I decided I didn’t need to be loyal to the company if some guy was paying attention to me?’”

“That’s enough, Chad.” Alex put his coffee down and stared at his former boyfriend. “You sound jealous. It’s not a good look.”

“I’m not jealous, Alex. You know better. I’m just looking out for you and for your career. I’m not going to rat you out, but you’d better believe they’ll find out eventually. And if they do, I’m not going to be able to do much to help you.”

Chad got up and walked away.

Alex took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart. He shouldn’t have accused Chad of being jealous. He did know better.

Chad didn’t get jealous, because he didn’t have to. Chad was Alex’s mentor, and his friend. If he had something to say, it was up to Alex to listen.

That didn’t mean Chad didn’t have his biases. Part of Alex wanted to call Jordan up and tell him they had to stay away from each other, for the sake of Alex’s job. He didn’t believe Jordan was capable of hacking into the bank’s systems, of course, but what he believed didn’t matter. It was all about the bank, and what they believed.

At the same time, something about Chad’s attack seemed off somehow. He’d truly seemed jealous, and that was weird. Alex knew he wasn’t, because that just wasn’t how Chad rolled, but something was going on there. And he’d actually followed Alex and Jordan into the bar, without knowing who Jordan was. That was a huge red flag to Alex, which made him hesitate before taking Chad’s advice at face value.

Knowing something was amiss with Chad’s advice didn’t keep Alex’s hands from shaking for the next few hours as he sat at his desk. Every little sound made him jump, especially if it came from his boss’s office. At one, when his boss stuck her head out of her office and asked him to step inside, he almost threw up.

This was it. This was the end. He was going to be fired, here and now. He would never work again. He’d have to go back to Texas in disgrace, and live under a bridge with his parents.

He pulled himself together and walked into Anna’s office, with his head up. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Close the door and have a seat, Alex.” She looked him over. “And try not to look so much like I ran over your cat, okay? I don’t even own a car.” She chuckled at her own joke. “Relax, okay?”

Alex tried to follow orders, but he couldn’t manage to do fully let go of his fear. He could close the door, though, and sit down. “What’s going on?”

She glanced at her screen. “Well, so far you’ve been doing a fantastic job with all of the work we’ve assigned to you. You’ve handled the accounts we gave you perfectly. You’ve made a few sales, which is outside the scope of what we asked from you, but that’s fantastic.

“And you’ve even picked up a ton of Chad Milton’s work, which is a few levels above you, and not anything that was ever assigned to you.” She frowned down at her screen. “Should we talk about that?”

Alex ran his tongue over the back of his teeth. Chad had been pretty emphatic — the projects for him were part of his job, and that was all there was to it. Now Anna was telling him that wasn’t the case at all?

He didn’t know what the truth was, but he wasn’t about to rat out the guy who’d gotten him the job in the first place. “It’s fine, ma’am,” he lied. “It’s not that much extra work, and I look at it as training.”

“Hm.” Anna didn’t add anything more than that, but glanced at the door. “Well, I’ve got a project for you that should keep you busy anyway, and Chad will have to do his own work again.

“I want to evaluate the performance of different funds and different fund components over time. I want to do this for all of our clients, regardless of manager. Can you set up a report to do this for me, including former clients, and include an alert that keeps me informed of any outliers?”

Alex could see a vision of the future stretched out before him. The functionality wasn’t built into their system. He’d have to cobble it together, and it would take a lot of work on his part. It would mean even more late nights and even more weekends and holidays.

He also knew he couldn’t say no. He needed to be the go-to guy if he wanted to keep his job. “Yes ma’am. I’ll get on it tonight.”

She smiled at him. “I knew I could count on you, Alex. You’re the best.”