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Solas is a three-in-one bar: a typical neighborhood joint with a long, polished counter down one wall, a food place with awesome tacos, and a dance joint with a space upstairs where a DJ spins tunes. I drag a shaking hand across my forehead, peering down at my sweaty clothes before hitching myself onto a stool. My mind slices through the parkour route that got me here after Janus texted me to meet him for a drink. So many leaps and slips, a collection of bruises coming up on my shins and my elbow.
A warm Friday night in May, and no surprises, it’s busy in here. I pat my pockets and come up empty.Dammit.No cash or cards. But before I can say anything, Salvatore the barman nods at me and slides a bottle of beer onto the glossy wood. I sip it gratefully: twelve fucking hours of trying to hack into a system today with nothing concrete to show for it.
“Stop sweating on my clean bar,” he says, snapping a dishcloth as he heads off to serve a guy sitting farther down, and I laugh.
Then a hand lands on my shoulder, and I grin.Janus. But I turn to find Darren, a gym pal and parkour friend, smiling down at me. He’s wearing a sling around his left arm.
“I thought it was you,” he says, just as I say, “What the hell?”
He makes a face. “Slipped on a wall,” he mutters as he crumples into the stool next to me and studies the shelves at the back of the bar. Injury is seen as an admission of failure among the committed parkour crowd.
“You never were that brilliant at walls,” I say deadpan. Darren can scale up almost anything, and he relaxes and meets my eyes with a grin.
“What have you been up to?” he says.
Dreaming about a woman I can’t have.
“Work okay?” he adds.
To most people, I’m a programmer. A freelancer. Boring. Same old, same old. I haven’t told Darren that I’m a hacker. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to talk, but trusting people is different. Not that I think that anyone would pose a threat or deliberately incriminate me, but there are people I’ve rubbed up the wrong way and keeping information tight is second nature now.
“Yeah, great. Wrestling with a tricky bit of code.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. Being evasive is like wearing my coat inside out.
Darren jerks his chin up at me. “By the way, someone was asking after you.”
What?
“The night I did this”—he lifts his elbow—“some guy was watching us, as people do, y’know? I thought he was security, but then he came up and asked about ‘a long-haired tattooed guy who was sometimes with us.’ He said he was a friend from college, which seemed fucking odd to me because, if that was the case, how come he’d watched us and not said anything? But Mark just said, ‘Fabian,’ right out before I could stop him.”
I sip my beer, cold dripping down my throat. “What did he want?”
“Just if we knew where to find you.” His eyes scan over me. “I just said no, but it felt off, y’know? An odd thing to ask.”
I shake my head. I can’t tell him about the threats and the hack into Janus’s company. That’s not the kinds of friends we are. “What did he look like?”
“Dark. Short. Built like a boxer.”
Yeah, I don’t know anyone who looks like that. There’s a shout behind us, and I jump, but when I turn Janus is heading toward us, grinning. Fuck. I can’t tell him about this, he’ll go into damage limitation mode, and I’m not sure I’ve forgiven myself for how they tried to close down his company.
“Why so serious?” he says, lifting his sweaty running top from his body and flapping it. Then he cuffs me across the head and smiles at Darren.
I frown at him in mock annoyance and try to cuff him back, but he dodges out of the way.
“Janus, this is Darren, a parkour friend of mine. Darren, Janus and I studied together at college.”
“Dangerous sport that,” Janus says, grinning at Darren’s arm. “I keep telling Fab he should stick to running.”
Darren makes a face. “Running’s too boring, man. Why run when you can climb and run at the same time?”
He flexes an impressive bicep, so I drag up my sleeve and flex mine against his.
Janus tuts and has just started to pull up the arm of his jacket when a soft voice behind him says, “What are you guys evendoing?”
I grin over Janus’s shoulder at Jo, and my whole stomach drops when I see who’s standing behind her.Kate.Why is Kate here? My eyes snap to Janus, and I glower at him, but he just raises his eyebrows, a smug expression on his face.
Kate’s dressed top to toe in black. A tight T-shirt hugs her breasts, and some kind of metalware is holding her jeans together, and fuck, her skin is visible underneath. Her normal sleek bob is tousled into disarray and her dark makeup gives her a sultry air that’s so unlike the prim doctor that I’ve seen before. All I want to do is stare and stare. I have to stop myself from examining her chest and I want to slap my head. Could I be any more sexist? I give her a half smile hoping it comes across as an apology, but I think she’s oblivious to my ogling because she grins back at me with a smile that makes me want to push past everyone and kiss away all that pearly nonsense on her lips.
“Table?” Jo says, waving her arm, and Darren and I grab our drinks from the bar and follow her while Janus leans over the counter and chats to the barman about beers.
