Page 75 of Keys

“I’m still processing everything I’ve learned over the past week.” June appeared ready to argue, but Keys held her hand up. “Yeah, I get it. You’ve had a lifetime and plenty of therapy to get over whatever your life circumstances were, but I just found out what those circumstances actually meant for you – for me.”

Her mother caved against Jack’s hold, waiting Keys out as she continued speaking. “I don’t know how to feel about you right now. So, I need you to give me space. You will respect my decision, or we will have you sent elsewhere for protection until we get everything figured out.” June offered a quick nod before turning her face into Jack’s chest and hiding her obviously tear-filled response.

One glance at Jack told me he understood completely. Maybe, that was because he too had to come to terms with certain aspects of his wife’s life. I wasn’t sure what all he knew before he married June or if the shit that went down during June’s kidnapping had him on edge still, but it was clear he understood exactly where Keys was coming from. He would be an ally and that was fucking great because it meant less work for me to do to protect my little keyboard warrior from anything else that might harm her.

“Why don’t we all have a seat, and figure out where to go from here?” I suggested. It was obvious, right away, that there were too many people standing around the lounge area on the upper floor. It would be a security risk for them to be moved deeper into the building, but there had to be somewhere else they could go, especially since there was a man standing near the reception area staring at me and Keys like he wanted to poke toothpick-sized holes in my body and watch me bleed out all over the floor.

“On second thought, is there somewhere more private we can go?” I asked while glaring daggers back at the asshole across the room. Keys noticed and turned that way. She stiffened briefly before shouting at the man.

“Get the fuck out of here, Mike, or we’ll go right back to ‘you’re fired’!”

So that was Mike Dodson. It was the first time I knowingly ran into someone Keys had been with before me and I didn’t like it one fucking bit, especially since he was still standing there.

“Waiting on Tash for debrief,” he called back, then smartly added, “per your orders.”

“Shit,” Keys huffed under her breath, though loud enough that I heard.

“Maybe you were too hasty in un-firing him,” I teased into her ear.

“Come on, we’ll go sit in the conference room, where we can shut the door,” Keys demanded before turning and heading down the hall to the other side of the elevator we had taken to get up here earlier.

Jack and June followed dutifully behind us without saying a word. Once we were behind closed doors, June started playing twenty questions though.

“This is where you work?”

“Yes,” Keys answered without elaborating.

“What do you do here?”

“This and that,” she insisted, again without giving up any details at all. I pinched her side to get her attention.

“Drop the hostile act and give your mom something. It won’t hurt to let her know how successful you became despite how you were raised.”

She huffed indignantly but then nodded her head once. “I’m the chief security officer here in charge of intelligence gathering and security protocols.”

Her mom looked taken aback by the explanation, but Jack grinned at her.

“That’s badass,” Jack offered just as her mother said, “It sounds like you work for the government.”

“No, it sounds like I do my job to keep the business that I helped to create safe.”

“Safe from whom?” Her mother asked, worried brows drawn down as she did.

“From anyone who might want to take advantage,” Keys told her pointedly. “Right now, that means keeping it safe from my own father and whatever craziness he’s cooking up. That’s why you’re here.”

June flinched having not missed the fact that her safety had been a secondary concern for Keys. “I see,” she finally said without much of a follow up.

“So, you’re a hacker?” Jack asked, needing to appease his own curiosity.

Keys glanced back at me. “I wouldn’t call what we do hacking, so much as…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of a more tasteful word for what we both did behind the screens of our computers.

“Wait, you too?” Jack asked. I nodded my head. “Damn. I never would have guessed.”

“Why is that?”

Jack grinned as he answered honestly. “Stereotypes, I guess. I think hacker and picture some nerdy neckbeard in his mom’s basement, not a fucking biker who is obviously in great shape and doesn’t seem like he’s living off mommy and daddy’s good will.”

I laughed, as did Keys. “Yeah, I guess I see your point and I haven’t lived off my parents since before I turned eighteen.”

---