Page 65 of Lethal Obsession

I pull out the phone and stare at it, then reluctantly put it back down. No matter what Andrew says, I’ve been deep enough in tech my entire life to know there is no such thing as a secure phone. Unlike my cyber room, which has a sophisticated scrambling system not even the best hacker could follow.

And by now, I guess my father knows someone is trying to kill me.

It doesn’t make me feel any better about letting him down.

Again.

Not to mention Masha, who doesn’t like broken promises at all.

And both of those crimes, no matter how bad, pale into insignificance beside that of leaving Ofelia’s half-naked body on a hotel bed with no explanation at all.

Christ.

I emerge from a very long shower and shave, then dress in shorts and a V-neck. For a moment I debate whether or not to put the eye patch back on, but in the end, I keep the sunglasses. It’s probably wiser to keep the disguise in place for now. Back up on deck I pour a stiff measure of Graf over ice and savor the sashimi, which is almost good enough to make up for the trials that brought it here. After polishing that off I lie back for a moment, enjoying the sun before I need to go inside and face the screens in the cyber room.

Closing my eyes is a mistake, of course.

The minute I do, all I see is Ofelia’s face.

Liar.

I see her face and her body. Every delicious crevice of it, not to mention the tantalizing imaginings of the parts I haven’t yet seen.

Yet?

That makes it sound like I’m planning on seeing those other parts.

Sure, asshole. Because obviously there’s nothing idiotic about the thought of asking Ofelia to come and hang out with a fugitive from international justice. It’s just the kind of safe, low-risk activity that any parent would approve of, right? Particularly Roman fucking Borovsky.

You need to park that particular fantasy, idiot.

Except I can’t rid my mind of the thought of having Ofelia here, with me, on the open sea. I can already imagine her long limbs growing tan in the sun, wearing nothing but a bikini that I can pull off at every available moment. I imagine the long summer days slipping away between one Mediterranean port and another.

Waking with her next to me in the vast master cabin, as the sun rises over Ibiza.

Slipping my arms around her lithe waist as we lean against the railing, watching the sun drop behind the sea.

Making slow, luxurious love to her out here on the deck beneath a carpet of stars.

Fuck.

I sit up abruptly, willing my throbbing hard-on to subside.

I need to get my shit together.

Reality is having black hair instead of blond. Of being on the run from at least two, and possibly more, intelligence agencies. Not to mention whatever private contractors are currently hunting me in search of a decent fee. Reality is being unable to stay anywhere for longer than it takes to resupply and expecting guns to greet me every time we pull into a marina. It’s losing my own name and having a passport that reads—I open the offending document, scanning my new name again—Ken Thompson.

Seriously, Mickey?

I glare at the name. “I sound like a fucking insurance agent,” I say aloud.

I read it again, wondering why it sounds so damned familiar. Then, as the penny drops, a slow grin spreads over my face. I raise my glass to Ofelia’s brother.

“Nice geek joke, Mickey,” I say aloud and down the vodka. Ken Thompson was the primary creator of the original Unix operating system, back in the ’60’s.

Ironically, I feel oddly cheered at the thought that despite Mickey’s less than subtle hostility, he still found a way to make me laugh.

Still grinning, and with my extremely inappropriate Ofelia fantasies safely filed, at least for the moment, I make my way down to the cyber room and open up a secure line.