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Byte smirked. She’d thought the same thing when Ivy told her the name of their company.
“So your time is being divided between the ATF agent and taking down these abusers.” Ivy could understand the debate, but why now? It couldn’t have been the first time Byte had overlapping missions. “But that’s not the only thing, is it?”
“Throw in the kid hacking into my life and it’s a little system overload.” Again, Byte wasn’t lying. She wasn’t a believer in omissions being the same as lying. Some things just didn’t need to be told.
“No doubt,” Aria agreed. “What do you need from us?”
“Nothing. I just need a few hours to get the evidence together and send it over to the FBI. It sounds like the guys have taken care of Kyle. So I’ll be fine.”
“Do what you need to do. At this point, we need more answers from Skylar before you can begin digging into her life.”
“Thanks, Ivy. Look, guys, Karma is important to me, but it’s also important to so many abused and abandoned children. I couldn’t save Chloe, but I—no, we—are saving future children from silent abusers. I love working with you guys, but it’s Karma that balances out all the criminal stuff I do. We give the information to the Feds and let them take care of the punishment. We aren’t killers. What happens to them once they are in custody or in prison isn’t on us.” At least that was what she told Aaron. No one knew how far her reach was. If Aaron had wondered why so many of our perpetrators were killed in prison, he’d never inquired about it. But she knew Aaron wasn’t dumb. He might not ask, and she knew he had his suspicions, but again omissions were her go-to theory in life.
“You don’t have to choose one over the other. You do what you need to and we’ll come get you when we get back from talking with Skylar,” Ivy instructed.
Nodding, Byte told the team goodbye and ran up the two flights of stairs to her apartment. After locking and securing the door, she called Aaron.
“Send it.”
“Already did.”
“Oh, well, good.”
“What about your mother?”
“I have questions, but I’m not sure I would believe her, even if she answered them.”
“You won’t know until you do.”
“Just send me the file.”
“It’s a large one. Some of it will be hard for you to read.”
“Not any harder than living in a foster home for seven years. I can handle it.”
Agreeing, Aaron shot over the file and made Byte promise to call him after she’d finished reading the materials. She had two hours before she had to return to ALIAS. As much as she hated lying to her friends, especially Ivy, she wasn’t prepared to share the rest of her life. She’d already given them more information than she’d ever told a soul. She’d shut down after Chloe’s death. She’d seen red and wanted revenge. Later that revenge had led to humiliating, exposing, and the Feds arresting the abusers. However, that wasn’t what had happened to Russell and Carol. After she’d paid for the hit, she realized she would open herself and others to police investigations. That was why she created a legitimate company with Aaron overseeing the day-to-day. She’d felt the relief of knowing her foster parents were dead, but the risk was what had caused her to change direction and utilize law enforcement. Byte didn’t regret hiring the hit man. She didn’t regret watching them die at the hands of a butcher. She’d never regret avenging Chloe. Never.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Byte had enough intel to form a picture of her mother. First, her name wasn’t Rosalyn Copeland. That had been her alias, as well as the cover ATF Special Agent Rosemary Evans used to get her father’s attention. Her father was a criminal with a long rap sheet including running guns and drugs across the Texas border. None of that surprised her. Her memories of her father were sketchy at best. He always seemed on edge, which now she knew he was most likely using drugs. Memories of her mother were quite the opposite. She remembered her mother brushing and styling her hair before school. She remembered the tight hug from that morning before she’d left the house. It was the last time she’d seen either parent again.
She’d been a job. It didn’t matter how many times her mother had said she loved her… she was a job. She was most likely an accident, a mistake, a complication.
Tossing the papers aside, she peered back at her computer. As much as she loved gathering intel, she’d fallen into the same habit Ghost had… She needed physical paper to hold. The papers lying next to her were proof of how much Ghost and Ivy had impacted her life.
Byte opened another Dove square. As addicted as she was to Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper, her secret pleasure was Dove chocolate. Messages within their wrappers were plastered inside her closet door. Pressing out the one she’d just opened, she read the words by Daniel M. from Pennsylvania and giggled.“Live your life every day with no regrets. It’ll be worth it.”
Talk about Karma. She’d just been thinking those same words.
She remembered the alert she’d received before going downstairs. She pulled up her message board and saw a name she’d not expected to see again.
From: YottaByte
To: GigaByte
No time to explain, but someone has kidnapped my brother. They want your identity. I’m sorry, but I will have to give it to them. - Kyle
This was going to call for more chocolate, Byte thought as she grabbed her keys and made her way out to her bike. She had time to investigate Kyle’s claims before she was to meet with the team and she needed to deal with a new threat, one that she thought had already been dealt with.
