Page 172 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

I stared at her as Felix’s humiliation crashed into me like a tidal wave. He was cowering into himself, shrinking smaller with each passing second.

Something fierce and protective roared to life inside me.

I set my cutlery down with a deliberate clack.

“Felix lied to you.”

Felix choked, dropping his chopsticks with a messy clatter.

“We didn’t meet on an app.”

Lily gasped like she was watching her favourite soap opera.

“We met at work.”

A sharp inhalation beside me. I clamped my hand down on my boyfriend’s thigh and squeezed hard.

Simon glanced between us, confused. “You work at Barcode and Beyond?”

I shook my head. “Felix works there. I know he loves it. They’d be lost without him. But so would we.”

Yuna’s chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”

“Felix also works part time at my firm. Has done for a while.”

The silence stretched like a taut wire. Yuna turned to Felix, her expression shifting from confusion to annoyance.

“Min-jun? Why on earth didn’t you tell us this?”

“It’s obvious, Eomma!” Lily bounced in her seat, eyes bright with excitement. “If he told us, he’d have had to kill us!”

I grinned at her. “That’s right. We could both get in serious trouble for telling you this. But I figure you’ve got a right to know just how brilliant your son is.” I addressed Yuna directly, letting my voice carry the weight of absolute conviction.

“I know how brilliant he is,” she said softly, her gaze never leaving Felix’s face. “I raised him.”

“Then it won’t surprise you to hear that four months ago, Felix prevented a cyberattack that would have taken down half of London’s financial district. The hackers had compromised the Underground’s control systems—they were planning to cause collisions during rush hour to create panic while they emptied bank accounts.”

Felix stared at me, mouth slightly open, his shock bleeding through our bond.

“Felix traced the intrusion back through seventeen proxy servers across four countries. Worked for thirty-six hours straight without sleep to build countermeasures. The authorities estimate he saved over a hundred lives that day.”

I reached for my water, buying myself time to think. The invented scenario had slipped from my tongue, as close to reality as I could make it.

“The encryption they were using was military-grade. Felix cracked it in four hours. Four hours for something that should have taken weeks.”

Yuna’s expression had transformed completely. Pride warred with concern across her features. “I… didn’t know the Met outsourced such work to private security firms.”

“Of course they do,” I said. “They know the best talent is in the private sector.”

“This is amazing, Felix!” Simon said, beaming from ear to ear.

Felix found his voice at last, though it came out strangled. “Thank you.”

“My firm was desperate to recruit him,” I continued, the lies flowing easier now. “Headhunted him, actually. Had been tracking him since university.”

Felix’s emotions churned—gratitude, terror, love, panic, all swirling together in a dizzying cocktail.

Lily leaned forward, fascinated. “So you two are like, proper spies?”