The Fall of East: Book 3 in the Hear No Evil Trilogy, Malone, Nana [inspiring books for teens txt] 📗

Now you live in a world of gray. 

I sure did.

All for justice.

Emma wiped her mouth as oxtail juice dripped down her chin. "Oh my God, Liv, seriously…"

Livy just grinned. "Isn't it amazing? I found the recipe a little bit ago. I mean, it involved making bread, so obviously it’s not a quick thing. But I'm glad you all like it."

Dusting her hands off, Emma looked at East and Telly. "Okay, you two, are you ready to do this?"

Both of them nodded, stretching their fingers out, acting for all intents and purposes as if this was a competition.

I looked at the man I loved. He really loved the competition. Watching him like this was different than how I knew him. Normally, he was battling to keep everyone in the group safe. There were a lot of us now. I wondered how stripped thin he was.

Emma stood with her napkin, waving it like a checkered flag. "On your mark, get set…" She glanced at Amelia. "Amelia, give your credentials."

Amelia very carefully gave them her access code to Interpol's communications database. What I wanted to know was who had put Warlow’s fingerprints into the untouchable category.

Why was there a firewall set up?

When Amelia was done, Telly and East let their fingers do the walking, flying across the keyboards, ducking and diving.

It was exciting only because I was watching East's expression. His brow furrowing, the way his tongue peeked out, the way his forehead scrunched in concentration… I'd seen that look before. Usually when he was between my legs.

I couldn't help but watch him and smile a little to myself.

I wanted to laugh at myself because every time we watched a movie about hackers, it was so exciting and always intense. But in real life, mostly we were just sitting there watching the two of them as we ate happily and waited for something to happen.

They tapped, glanced at each other, tapped some more, and oh yeah, they tapped.

Finally, East tapped twice and then laughed. "Suck it, bitches."

Telly scowled. "No way."

East was turning his laptop around for all of us to see. "Let the record show that I am the best hacker you people know."

I laughed. "You are also the worst winner."

"Hey, I won. That’s all that matters."

I just shook my head. Telly buried her face in her hands. "Oh my God, I let the pretty boy beat me."

His gaze snapped back to hers. "Let? You didn't let me do anything. I beat you easily. You're not even past the second set of firewalls yet."

Her eyes went wide. "There was a second set of firewalls?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I learned that when I busted into the NSA. Best not to get caught breaking in that case."

I stared at East. I loved him. I really did. And it was easy. Nothing in my life had ever felt this easy, this right. Like something I could do and wouldn't mess up. And for once, I wasn't terrified out of my mind. All I could do was shake my head.

It was Ben that pushed away from the wall and demanded results. "Oh, come on, let's have it. Is it him, or isn't it?"

East just laughed. "Gosh, impatient, aren't we?"

He hit one more key. "Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like Henry Warlow is Lord Walter Jameson."

I mean, I'd been expecting it. I had. But to see it in black and white that the prints matched, that the man who’d tried to lecture me about art was a thief… It was a hard pill to swallow.

Bridge whistled low. "Holy shit, that means Garreth Jameson is the son of a thief.”

Amelia's frown deepened. “He's an impostor, for sure. He's stolen a life. But how do we prove it?”

* * *

Nyla

Usually, the idea of girls’ night gave me a rash.

It wasn't until the other night when Telly and Livy were talking about going out to celebrate that we had at least moved something along that I realized I envied them and their steady friendship. Of course, I had Amelia. And she was legitimately the best friend I could ever ask for.

But making new friends wasn't easy for me. Never had been. I was almost too intense maybe. Then of course, I would get caught up in a whole new crusade and not necessarily lose interest, but obviously I tended to have a single-minded focus that could make my friends feel overlooked.

I couldn't help but wonder if maybe Denning had a point. Not that I would ever concede that he had made a point, but I had a one-track focus at all times, and it was difficult to dissuade me, which could make me hard to get to know.

"This is girls' night. You're supposed to be relaxing and having a great time," Hazel said as she leaned over toward me with a grin.

"How is she already drunk? We've only had two glasses of wine,” Amelia whispered too loudly.

Hazel hiccupped and apologized. "Sorry, I don't get out much."

Amelia leaned over and popped a piece of flatbread in her mouth. "That's just sad. You’re the one who's engaged. Shouldn't you be having, you know, a lovely night out pretty often? Wining. Dining. All that good stuff?"

Hazel shook her head. "Well, Denning works all the time. And I'm still a grad student. Not much time for wining and dining, so this is actually pretty great." With a wince, she shimmied out of the booth. “Just headed to the loo, I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she was out of earshot, Telly leaned forward. "All right, Nyla, since your boyfriend defeated me, in that very simple hack I might add, I owe you a drink. What are you having next?"

I laughed. "I hardly see that as a defeat. You would have gotten there yourself without him."

She laughed. "If I'm being honest, I wasn't ever going to get there. Sometimes he's just better at hacking. The moment we came up against those very official-looking roadblocks, I just lost it. And might I ask, Amelia, did