The post-sparring shower had helped, but Kat still had a twinge in her ribs where Nyra had clipped her. Totally worth it. She felt alive again—vibrating with energy, too wired to sit still but too sore to do anything about it.
So naturally, she went back to her comfort zone: computers.
She had quietly built a backdoor into the Brotherhood's internal network last night while everyone else was watching movies and pretending not to flirt. If they were going to treat her like a guest, she was going to act like a hacker.
Kat sat cross-legged on the bed, hair damp, hoodie sleeves shoved up, her fingers flying across the keys of the burner laptop she insisted on keeping. The Brotherhood's internal security was layered, military-grade, even with V's fingerprints all over it.
But she'd cracked harder systems on a Red Bull bender.
What she didn't expect...was the echo.
She stared at the lines of code rerouting on the screen—looped IP pings, a trail that dipped beneath the main servers. It was like someone had built a secret channel under the compound's network. Off-grid. Silent.
And it wasn't hers.
"What the hell..." she whispered, tracking it into a dead-end cluster buried beneath the armory blueprints.
Then, the screen flashed.
A single line of red text appeared:
Nice try, sweetheart.
Kat's heart jumped.
She didn't write that.
Before she could react, the door creaked open.
She jumped, slammed the laptop closed, and whirled.
Vishous.
"Jesus!" she snapped. "Ever heard of knocking?"
He leaned in the doorway, all shadows and stillness. "Ever heard of keeping your hands out of my systems?"
Her eyes narrowed. "So that was you?"
"I don't leave cute messages in red font."
"Then who the hell—?"
"Exactly," he said darkly, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him.
Kat backed up slightly. "Okay. Look. You want to throw shade? Fine. But you don't get to break into my room and act like you're the one under attack."
"I didn't break in. I live here. This is my house."
"Try saying that again without sounding like a serial killer."
He stepped closer, eyes flaring behind his shades.
Kat's pulse kicked up. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Get in my space like you own it."
"You're the one sniffing around my code."
"I found something!" she snapped, chest rising. "Something you didn't see. There's a backchannel in your system. Hidden. And if it wasn't you or me, then someone else is crawling through your damn walls."
His jaw ticked.
That got his attention.
"You sure?"
"Double checked the echo routing myself."
Vishous stepped even closer, dropping his voice. "Show me."
Kat glared. "Ask nicer."
He smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
