“You didn’t kiss him, did you?” Jos’s voice is sharp, like she already knows the answer.
My cheeks blaze. “He kissed me.”
Magdalena slides her glasses higher, pink sequins glittering across the frames she glued herself. She peers at me over the lenses, eyes narrowing. “Did you kiss him back?”
I shift on my feet. “I did.” The words scrape out. I’d done a lot more than that. No way I’m giving them details.
Mag’s chair creaks as she leans forward, her elbow on the desk, her hand fishing in the glass bowl beside her. She unwraps a caramel with neat, practiced fingers. “Well, how was it?”
I glance at the floor, then up, my voice light and shaky. “He’s a good kisser.” Oh, please don’t ask for more details. Please.
Aura pats my arm, her thin skin soft and smelling faintly of rose lotion. “As long as all you did was kiss him, I suppose that’s all right.”
Oh, for the love of everything holy. “He’s not that bad.” I nod toward Leo, who sprawls contentedly on the rug. “He beat up a guy to save the puppy.” Killed the guy, really.
Three pairs of eyes turn toward the dog. Jos studies him with her usual soft spot for animals. Mag tilts her head, sugar still melting in her mouth. Aura just smiles like glitter belongs in every corner of the world.
“He let you keep a dog?” Jos asks, disbelief edging her words.
“Not justletme,” I say. “He helped me save him.” My voice pushes too hard, like I’m trying to sell somethingI don’t quite buy. Justice might be decent with me, with dogs, probably with elderly women, but in the grand tally of life, his soul probably has some serious dents. It should worry me more than it does. “I kind of feel safe when I’m with him.”
Aura gasps and claps her rhinestone-bright glasses up on her head. “That’s how they get you, honey. They make you feel safe, make you feel special, and before you know it—”
“You’re in the mob,” Jos finishes flatly.
I laugh under my breath. “I don’t think that’s really how it works.” Though both Alana and Rosalie ended up right there. Not in the business, but standing beside it. Rosalie’s an attorney, a legitimate one, and Alana still fronts Aquarius Social with posts online, now branching into Malice Media. Neither of them has blood on their hands. Every instinct in me says their men would burn the world to protect them. I like that for them. “I can’t gossip any longer. We need to get to work to retake my company.”
I need the TimeGem powerful servers to cure the computer virus before anybody else gets a hold of it. Including Justice. Of course, I plan to cure him as well. Somehow.
Aura twirls a strand of her silver hair and eases back into her chair, sequined tracksuit sparkling under the glow of the string lights. She rolls closer to her keyboard, fingers poised. “I tracked what you sent. Whoever infiltrated the TimeGem servers knew what they were doing. I can piggyback on that, same as you. And I see you’ve already been in here.”
The room hums with machine noise and little touches of defiance. Glitter clings to the carpet, catching the twinkle of string lights looped around curtain rods.
Mags nods. “We can take the system down whenever you want, but we need a plan.”
Jos nods, fingers resting on the edge of her neat notepad. “If we take the diamonds out of commission, we have to make sure there are citrines ready to replace them, and you’ll need to be there to charge them.”
Mags taps her chin, squinting at the monitor glow. “Unless you charge them beforehand. Either way, we need them ready, and we need to be in the server room to do it.”
I stiffen. I don’t like the way they keep sayingwe. “How exactly are we going to do that?”
Aura smiles, and despite her rhinestone tracksuit and silver bun, it’s wicked. “I’m working on that.”
Mags exhales hard, her sequined glasses slipping down her nose. “I’d love to steal the diamonds. They’re so … sparkly.”
Aura tilts her head, considering. “I suppose we could. I know a good fence in Boise.”
Jos leans back, crossing her arms over her white shirt. “There’ll be some residual energy in the diamonds from Sylveria since she’s the one charging them, but it’ll fade. We could sell them on the open market. Think of the dogs we could save.”
“I’d like that,” I murmur. “Sylveria’s hinted she needs my help a few times, but she hasn’t told me what for, and I haven’t hit her servers yet. Have you?”
Mags shakes her head. “Not yet. Someone else is already after them.”
I grin despite myself. “I like that. I like that a lot.”
Aura narrows her eyes, glitter flashing from her glasses. “Totally agree.”
The monitors throw pale light across their faces—Aurawith her sequined sleeves, Mags with her candy bowl pushed to the side, Jos with her locket catching the glow. The whole room hums with electricity and age, these women plotting server raids like it’s just another Tuesday.
