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“Aaron, not everyone has a savior out there. If my mother didn’t know where to find me, couldn’t she have found me in foster care? I’ve been in here for four years now. I’m not even sure if she’s alive, nor my father for that matter. Not that I care.”
Aaron wasn’t too sure about that, but he wasn’t going to argue with his best friend. He missed his parents, his friends, and his family, but he did have a light at the end of the tunnel, unlike Danielle, Chloe, and so many others.
“We should look them up.”
“Not interested. My father is probably in prison, and my mother is probably shacking up with another loser. Most definitely not interested.”
Aaron rolled his neck, wondering if he should look into her parents without asking for permission.
Not if I want to keep Danielle as my friend.
So instead of giving in to his curiosity, he showed Danielle how to write code. Aaron had always had an interest in what the school called STEMS, but basically it was science, technology, engineering, and math. Writing code encompassed two of those subjects and he liked that he could teach something to Danielle. Any time he could spend with her made his day. He knew his feelings would never be matched. He’d known it from the first day he’d met her, and he wondered if her parents’ betrayal would forever have such a stronghold on Danielle. She had already put a lock on her heart. She’d been in foster care long enough for the damage to be done.
Now years later, he had his answer. Danielle was on a mission to make the guilty pay, regardless of the danger it put her in.
* * *
Byte could always seewhen Aaron’s thoughts went back to their foster home. His eyes turned sad. He’d told her before that he hated leaving her behind, but what could he have done? They’d talked for a while, until she stopped answering his emails. In fact, she hadn’t seen or spoken to him until their paths crossed at Chloe’s funeral. By then, she was Byte, and Chloe’s death changed the trajectory of her life. She’d used the skills Aaron had taught her to delve into the dark world of crime, and created the threat known as GigaByte.
CHAPTERNINE
Hunter, for the second time, found his hands restrained. He wondered if these were the same ones who’d taken them before. If so, why did he feel genuine fear? Sure, he’d felt afraid when the three men had taken him and Kyle, fear like he’d never experienced before. However, the fear he had at that moment was the paralyzing kind. First, they spoke in Spanish. Second, they hadn’t covered their faces. These men were bolder and rougher than the others.
“Do you know who I am?” the well-dressed man asked.
“No clue.”
Hunter watched as the man smoothed down his closely cropped beard.
“It would appear Kyle hasn’t told you he was working for me.”
“My brother is thirteen. It’s illegal to hire him. What could he possibly be doing for you?”
Please don’t say it’s selling drugs. Please!
“Your brother is very talented. Did you know he was a hacker?”
Hacker!
“He’s a kid.”
“And a very good hacker. He took on a job and has since decided to quit. No one ever quits when working with me.”
“You kill them instead,” Hunter tried to say as calmly as possible. Perhaps all those years of practice, using different tones and inflections were helping with his indifferent sounding comment.
The man didn’t have to answer for Hunter to understand he’d been correct.
“What job was he doing?” Hunter asked instead.
“He’s looking for someone who has stolen from me.”
“This GigaByte something.”
“How did you know that?”
“Because her people kidnapped us last night and made similar threats… Back off or else.”
“Interesting. So he had found her.”
