Chapter 5
Upon returning to Portland, Vincent decided it was time to move back into his own damn house. After hiring a security team to sweep the room for bugs – of which they found two, one behind the TV and the other in a bedroom lamp – and traps, he hired a different security company to start a bodyguard detail for both himself and Nala. So whenever Nala went to work, some guy in a black suit followed her. The only saving grace was that her work cut back her hours and now left her more grateful than ever that she had Vincent to take care of her financially for now. I don’t have the mental ability to find a new job. I don’t have the time, either.
Vincent worked for two days before announcing to his team that he was taking at least another week off. While Nala was not there for the uprising that almost caused, she did hear Vincent on the phone haggling new benefits for his employees to make up for him not being there. “If it’s a dire emergency,” he told Andrew the first night off, “I will deal with it. Otherwise, don’t bother me. I have a very personal project that demands my attention right now, and I will be using all my work energy on it.”
Nala found out soon enough what that was.
It began with a single computer on the dining room table. Parts splayed across the surface, and when Nala asked, Vincent simply told her he was a building “a very powerful machine.” As someone who had no idea about that sort of thing, Nala left him to it.
Then another computer appeared. Then a high-powered laptop was unearthed from Vincent’s bedroom closet. How many computers does this guy have? Nala had seen his work laptop plenty of times. He was always working on some code, answering emails, or surfing the web before bed. The last casual website she saw him on was a Fallout message board where those who received advanced copies could report bugs and their other thoughts. “Good game. I even got used to the dog. However, my game gets significantly lower FPS at…”
There was no more time for games now. Vincent had three computers set up at the dining room table – banishing Nala to eat her meals on the couch – and a large, brightly lit box that he revealed was a security device. Naturally, Nala assumed this was his security. Soon enough, she found out that the box wasn’t meant to protect a damn thing at all.
The screens were almost always black, with green, white, and yellow typescript appearing whenever Vincent touched his primary keyboard. Sometimes he had to get up and type on another computer. Other times he brought in the bodyguard hanging around outside and asked him to help with moving a large piece of equipment that was too big for Nala to help with. What in the world is he doing? He said this was his big plan for taking down Crow. So far, all she saw Vincent doing was working on a huge program to do… something. I really wish I could read this shit. It might as well have been Chinese.
Nala couldn’t help. She spent those first two nights on the couch, either playing video games or pretending to be fascinated with TV shows. Yet whenever a commercial came on, she sat up, staring at the side of Vincent’s head as he sat in a hoodie and jeans like he did every time he was home. Sometimes he became so wound up in frustration that he ripped off the sweatshirt and kicked it across the room.
Nala had seen nerds explode before. Most of those nerds didn’t have a six-pack to eat dinner off of or a billion dollar company at their disposal. So when Vincent wanted to punch a hole in the wall because his project wasn’t going the way he wanted, he got up, went to the corner, and gave his punching bag a good one-two. Then he would come back, sit down, and get back to work with grumbles on his lips.
Leave him alone. When Vincent was done for the night, he would go take a shower and then pull his small laptop into bed for some “light research.” Nala would cuddle next to him, ask him how he was doing, say a little something about herself, and then go to sleep with a laptop glare in her face. Sometimes she tried to help him relax. Because, well, a girl had needs. So did Vincent, surely, but either he was getting off in his shower or he had mastered the ability of completely turning off his libido for the time being. Jealous. Nala wished she could do that.
The only time he completely relaxed with her was when he put his laptop down early, pushed himself down, and welcomed Nala’s hand around his growing erection. She got a little something in return, but she had to mostly take care of herself when he wasn’t around. One time she got so loud up in the bed while he was on his computers down below that he actually called up to her to please be quiet. She yelled back at him to put on some headphones. So he did. Heavy metal blared from them while Nala came to the thought of him taking her from behind.
Heavy fucking metal.
Three days of this passed. Nala was the only reason he ate. She brought him take out and some simple homemade things like soup and wraps. Vincent thanked her halfheartedly, his attentions so fully focused that Nala didn’t have a snowman’s chance in Miami of getting through to him.
Finally, one night he slumped on the couch, taking a breather and complaining about his wrists. Nala went into the bathroom and finally faced the one thing she was currently most afraid of.
Don’t be blue. Don’t be blue. Don’t be blue. Had a few minutes in the bathroom ever been as nerve wracking as they were right now? Nala tried to distract herself with her phone, convinced that her fate was not as tied into a stick as it was right now. Because Vincent would totally be the most fertile man in the world. Nala had made it this long on HBC without a known pregnancy, so it wasn’t her. Totally.
When she had her result, she went downstairs and dangled the stick in front of Vincent’s droopy face.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Something I peed on. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks.” He took the end she held and looked at it in the wan light. “I don’t know what this means.”
“It means I’m not pregnant.” Nala sat down next to him with a relieved sigh. “I mean, I’ll take the other one to be sure, but don’t be shocked if I’m bleeding in another week.”
Vincent glanced at her but didn’t say anything as he gently set the test on the coffee table. He leaned back in his couch and closed his eyes.
“Well? Aren’t you happy that I’m not pregnant?”
He opened one eye and looked at her, beyond tired. “Of course I am. Now would be a terrible time to have a kid.”
He wasn’t whistling a snappy Dixie tune. “You okay?”
Vincent put a hand against her outer thigh. “I’m fine. Tired.”
Nala glanced at the test and then back at her boyfriend. “Did you want to have a baby?”
He snorted. “Not right now, that’s for sure.”
“But… like…”
“It’s neither here nor there.”
Nala tilted her head, as if she could read Vincent any more than she already could. “It’s everywhere, isn’t it? Should we talk about this?”
“Not right now we shouldn’t.”
Nala rolled her eyes. “Typical response. When I thought I might’ve been pregnant with my ex one time, he was the same way. Didn’t want to talk about it! How does that help me any?”
Vincent held her gaze with two crisp eyes. “Fine. The whole kid thing is a bit of a sore spot with me.”
Nala bit back her lip, but it didn’t stop her from speaking. “Why is that?”
It took Vincent a while to respond. When he did, his hands were to himself, and he stared at the ceiling as if looking in Nala’s direction was suddenly the worse thing possible. Oh, boy. Here we go. “Desirée was pregnant about a year before she died. Came as a surprise, since we were always so careful.”
“I see…”
“She had a miscarriage four months in.”
“I’m sorry.” What else could Nala say?
“I took it harder than she did, honestly. When she told me, I think she had already started moving on. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks because she went home to tell her family while I had to stay behind and work on a project. It happened while she was there, before she even had the chance to tell her family.”
“Damn.”
“So by the time I found out… well, I had surprised her with a diamond ring. Fuck, that’s when I proposed to her. Right after she told me.”
Shit.
“I was still adjusting to the idea at the time. Here I was, still feeling like a kid even though I was older than men of my father’s generation when they started having kids. I spent more time feeling nauseas with worry than I did focusing on my work. You know, as a guy, I always know that every time I have sex there’s a chance I’ll have a kid, and there’s no say in it. It’s the chance I take as a man. When I was finally faced it, I realized it didn’t scare me as much as I thought it should. I knew it would be hard. I knew that I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved Desirée, and having a family with her seemed natural. I was in the mindset that I was going to be a father and I would have to provide for my wife and child… so I worked hard. Every day I thought about my future kid. I didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl, but I knew it didn’t matter. It would be different either way, but I would love them no matter what… that’s what I felt in my heart.”
Nala leaned back next to him and pushed her body toward his. Her fingers played between his own. “I’m sorry.”
“I guess I don’t deal with grief well. I will never know how Desirée really felt about losing the baby, but she seemed to bounce back a lot easier, and she was the one carrying it. I had no physical stake in it. All I had was this image in my head and the words of my own father growing up. When we talked about it later, I told Desirée I would like to try again when we were ready, and that if she ever found herself pregnant again, I would be happy.”
“You’re a good guy, Vincent.”
He wrapped his arm around her, kissing the top of her head. “When you told me about what was going on with you, I had all those emotions come back. I tried to be rational, but I couldn’t be. While I’m relieved that you’re not pregnant right now because of everything going on… a part of me is also thinking back to those days.”
I didn’t think he would care so much. Yeah, if she were pregnant… but she assumed that not being pregnant was a non-issue. A relief and nothing more.
“Don’t mind me, Nala. I’ve been thinking way too much these past two weeks.”
“What are you working on over there?” Finally, a natural topic change.
Vincent glanced at his setup on the dining room table. “Do you want to see?”
“Sure.” Nala wasn’t sure she would understand it, but she would take a gander.
They got up, Nala still thinking about Vincent’s past. I didn’t know Desirée had been pregnant and miscarried. No wonder the man was so attached to her and grieving so hard after so long. First he lost a child that never had the chance to be born, and then he lost the mother, the woman he loved and wanted to make his wife. Nala still thought of these things as she stood behind the dining room chair and looked at a screen covered in strange white numbers and words.
“Is this some sort of program you’ve been writing nonstop?”
“Sort of.” Vincent pointed to a particular line. “This is what I’m having trouble with. It’s a security bypasser, but the security I’m trying to bypass is too strong. Some of the hardest shit I’ve ever gone up against. My hacking is a bit rusty since college…”
“Wait a second. You’re hacking something? Into what? Xavier Crow’s servers?”
“Exactly that.”
The look of determination on Vincent’s face was almost unreal. Nala looked at the screen again, hoping that it would suddenly make sense if she stared long and hard enough. Is this the insides of Crow’s security? For what? His business? His personal computer? Nala wasn’t sure exactly what Vincent was hacking, but it had to be difficult!
“You used to hack?”
“Who didn’t? In my world, anyway.” Vincent shrugged. “Hacking was a point of pride as a kid. It was how we showed off to our peers. Who could hack into the school’s website and put up something funny? Who could hack a social media profile? Who could hack the website of a hate group? Stuff like that. As we got older, the sites got harder to hack and it became more a point of proving shit to ourselves. I stopped hacking a few years ago to focus on my actual studies… you know, building stuff, not breaking into it.”
“Noble.”
“So like I said, I’m a bit rusty. It doesn’t help that Crow has some of the hardest security to crack that I’ve ever seen. Not surprising, though. He’s got a lot to hide.”
“Seriously! What exactly are you trying to hack?”
Vincent waved his hand as if that would make what he wanted suddenly appear. “I’m going back and forth between two different things, hoping taking a break from one will make the other easier. Specifically, I’m trying to hack into his email accounts and his home computer.”
“You can hack into his home computer?” This was starting to get beyond Nala’s ability to comprehend.
“Of course I can. Anything can be hacked if it’s on a network. Trust me, that man’s home computer is on a network. It has to be.”
“Okay. So how’s it going?”
“I told you. I’m having trouble with the security. It might be another day or two before I’m able to break through. If it takes longer than that… well, I’m afraid it might be impossible for me, or I might be detected. I’m rerouting my IP address through half a dozen countries to throw them off my trail, but if someone worth their shit takes a look at who’s breaking in, they’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“That sounds scary.”
“It could be. We’re already on his shitlist. If I fuck this up, we’re as good as dead. No way they’ll let either of us hang around for much longer. You know, Nala… I’ve been thinking…”
“Yeah?”
“If this keeps going deeper, you might have to run.”
“What do you mean?”
Vincent sat back in his chair and glared at her. “I’m not going to be responsible for your death. I’d much rather shove a stack of money in your hands and send you off somewhere you’ll be safe under an assumed name. Do you understand? I can’t lose you like that too. I’d rather break up because it’s the safe thing to do… than see you die like Desirée did.”
Nala put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to die, Vincent. Do you understand me? I have no intention of going down to that man or any of his cronies.”
“That’s all well and good, darling, but…”
“We’re not even going to talk about this right now.” Nala began to walk away. “You get back to your hacking, and I’ll leave you alone so you can do it. You better hack into it, Vincent. I’m serious. I wanna see what that lunatic is hiding.”
“If I can.”
“Like I said, I’ll stop distracting you.” Nala chose that moment to go back to the living room and start flipping through channels again. While Vincent continued to type on his computers, Nala thought more and more about what she had learned that night. What he was doing, where he had been in his life. I should take that other test to make sure. On one hand, it was nice to know that Vincent would be there for her if she decided to have a baby. Hell, he’d probably be ten times more excited about it than her. I dunno, I’ve never been pregnant that I know of. On the other hand, that was a lot to bear, both literally and figuratively. Nala wasn’t ready yet, if she ever would be. Besides, there was too much on the line right now. What if Vincent sent her away for her own good and she was pregnant? What would happen then? Mysterious money in her accounts? Meeting up in secret in the middle of deserts? Would the kid even know that Vincent was its father?
Nala had to stop thinking about these things. She was living in a toxic soap opera, but in this show all the deaths were real and the threats looming in every shadow. A woman almost died in this room. Nala would have to go visit Robin soon.
The TV stopped on a 24-hour news network. Nala usually blocked out the “SHOCKING ANNOUNCEMENT: SOMEBODY DIED” headlines for her own sanity, but tonight, she was hooked from the moment she saw the picture appearing on the large screen.
“Vincent!” she called, hoping her voice was loud enough to break through whatever bubble he hid himself in. “Look!”
She felt him behind her within a few seconds. Just in time, too, for the news network broke from a sponsored product to the actual story at hand.
“This just in from Germany: multi-millionaire and shipping giant Othello Gainsborough died in a car accident outside his home in Hamburg. Also in the car with him was his long-time girlfriend Melanie Marcus. She is currently in critical condition at a local hospital. On-site investigators say the accident was caused by reckless driving, as photos from a local intersection show Mr. Gainsborough texting on his phone shortly before he crashed into a median and flipped his car three times. Doctors say he was killed instantly. We’ll report more as soon as we can.”
Vincent took the remote out of Nala’s hand and turned off the TV. “Shit,” he muttered. “Time to get back to work.”
There was no need to discuss what had happened. Othello was the man mentioned in that letter Nala found in Crow’s office. Melanie must have been Sparrow’s real name. Now both were dead, or almost dead.
I wonder what they did to piss him off. Were they moved away on Crow’s insistence, on pain of death? Or did they move on their own, to get away from Crow and people like Hawk? Did it matter? Not really, because either way, it was Crow who had them killed. No wonder Vincent wanted to get back to his project. The longer he sat around doing nothing, the higher Crow’s kill count got.
Nala couldn’t help but wonder when she would be targeted.