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Jesse
If Pegasus Star Security was my castle, then my office chair was my throne. A throne that my younger brother, Devin, had no problem marking up with his dirty shoes.
“For the love of God,” I grumbled. “Would you sit like a normal human being? You’re going to ruin your back like that. Not to mention destroy the leather. I had this chair imported from Italy, you know.”
Devin scoffed but didn’t budge. He was too preoccupied with whatever was on his laptop, which was perched precariously on the tops of his knees. “Whatever you say,Mom.”
“Grown-ass man, but you sit like a child.”
“I’m doing you a favor here,” he pointed out. “Do you want me to help you set up a new cybersecurity division or not? I’ve got plenty of offers from other companies in Chicago who are willing to pay me way more.”
I clicked my tongue. I loved my brother, but sometimes he could be the world’s biggest pain in the ass. If I wanted to give Pegasus Star a leading edge against other security firms in Chicago, I needed to branch out and offer my clients digital protection as well as physical. We both knew that he was the leading expert in cybersecurity analytics from here to Dallas. I wouldn’t find anyone better.
Growing up, Devin had always been considered the intelligent one. We were both smart, but he wassharp. Too much for his own good, in my opinion. It got him into his fair share of trouble with the other boys in the trailer park. Most of them didn’t take too kindly to being shown up time after time.
And while Devin had excellent wit, he wasn’t so good with fists. That was where his big brother came in. I dragged him out of more fights than I could count. I won far more often than I lost, but one thing remained the same: no matter how much of a pain in the ass he was, we’d always be there for each other.
Which was exactly why I knew Devin was full of it.
“Please,” I said with a snort. “If you wanted to work with someone else, you would have done that already. Didn’t Google offer you a hefty paycheck to join them?”
Devin’s fingers flew over his keyboard. He was coding a new server system for my firm. That, or hacking into the Matrix. Both were perfectly valid options.
“I don’t like working for suits,” he muttered.
“You work forme.”
“No, I workwithyou. There’s a difference.” He pressed theEnterkey several times. “If I’d taken that job with Google, there would have been some supervisor with a superiority complex because they graduated from MIT breathing down my neck the whole time. I prefer freelancing.”
“What makes you think thatI’mnot going to breathe down your neck the whole time.”
“Because you know for a fact I would never put up with that shit, so you’re not going to try in the first place.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re so fucking annoying.”
“Right back at you.”
“How’s everything coming along? You going to take much longer?”
Devin glared at me. “This isn’t like the movies. I can’t create an entire security server with a couple of clicks. It’s complicated. You wouldn’t tell a brain surgeon to hurry up in the middle of an operation, would you?”
“I might. If they had their damn feet up on my desk.”
My brother hummed. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“Your calendar’s awfully full.”
I frowned. “The hell are you doing going through my calendar?”
“I’m waiting for my codes to load.”
“That’s not an invitation to go snooping. It’s supposed to be password protected.”
Devin shot me anare-you-kidding-melook. “As your future head of cybersecurity, it’s my recommendation that you don’t set your password aspassword. That’s asking for trouble.” Before I could get a word in, Devin continued, “Seriously, Jesse. Look at this. Do you even have time to breathe?”
I paced around my office. “It’s none of your business.”
