The Love Algorithm - Vol. III

【01】The Best Defense

On Sunday morning, the news had broken. Someone had leaked the information, and it was suddenly everywhere. The infamous, world-renowned hacker had allegedly been caught.

The few public pictures of Lex were circulating everywhere, on screen as much as on paper, as the world tried to understand who Alexander Coleman was. Who was the enigmatic co-CEO of Kelex, son of the fossil fuel tycoon, Richard Coleman?

To the public, it was like a movie pitch: a jaded billionaire going against his own kind, taking from his people and redistributing to the rest. He was an enigma people were eager to crack, and the media was banking on every insignificant detail they could find, using everyone's curiosity to their advantage.

Knowing how much Lex valued his privacy, this was gut-wrenching. This invasion was yet another awful thing he was going through.

Ever since his arrest had been made public, I'd been harassed by reporters in search of the next big piece of information. Within an hour after the leak, my phone was blowing up with calls, some from friends and family, others from shameless reporters. Because we'd gone to Eva's gala together, it was of public knowledge that Lex and I were together. This made me particularly subjected to their interest. After naively picking up on one of those hidden callers, I'd quickly learned to only answer the numbers I knew and ignore the rest.

Reporters had been waiting for me on Monday morning, both in front of my building and when arriving at Kelex's. They would throw the most demeaning, insulting, and degrading questions at me, hoping to get a reaction, hoping to get me to admit to something that would get them on the front page.

But on Kevin's advice and my own good sense, I always remained silent, refusing to play their obscene games. Our life was private, and I wouldn't let them display it all over TV and the internet for audience ratings and clicks.

Staring at the flock of vultures outside, safely hidden by the tinted window, I gathered some courage and eventually nodded. I could do this. We'd walk in and sit through the preliminary hearing, praying for the best.

Our big hope was that the charges would be dropped today, given how little evidence they must have had against Lex. They hadn't even found his hacking computer, and winning a case without the tool used for the crime was very unlikely. At the very least, we would finish today by taking my man home after he'd made bail. He wasn't a dangerous criminal. They wouldn't keep him over this. And Lex had enough money to pay for whatever sum they could ask for.

"Okay, I'm ready," I declared after taking a deep breath.

"Just stay close to us and don't let them get under your skin. Everything will be fine," Shelly reminded me.

I nodded, and it was all Kevin was waiting for. He opened the door, the few men he'd hired standing right there, ready to escort us into the building. Flashes and shutters went off as soon as we were in sight, filling me with apprehension. I was never again buying a magazine that pried on people's private life. This was so wrong and obscene; I felt sorry for those who lived through this all year long.

Following the plan, we remained in tight formation, ignoring the questions they threw at us.

"Miss Walker! Did you know who he was?"

"Were you surprised to hear what he'd done?"

"Are you ashamed of hiding his secret?"

In an attempt to hold back all the things I wanted to tell them, I bit my tongue, trying to contain the rage growing within me. Lex's preliminary hearing hadn't even started yet, but they'd already reached their own conclusions. In their mind, Lex was guilty before ever being proven so. They had their white whale, the hacker who'd made so much ink flow in the past, and they weren't letting go.