Luis bobs his head. “Of course. Will you be sitting in on all the interviews today?”
“No.” Luis probably wants me to elaborate, or to explain myself, but he won’t push. Everyone knows I’m a minimalist when it comes to conversation.
“May I ask… what did she say in the elevator?”
I shrug. “She insulted me. It’s fine. I’m sure most of my employees have said similar or worse things about me behind my back.”
Luis plays with his paper coffee cup on the table, too diplomatic to agree. “What did you think about her?”
“She’s bright, that’s obvious. Her resume isn’t that impressive. How did Stu say he found her?”
“Headhunter.”
“I wonder why the headhunter thought she’d be a good fit when she has no infosec experience on her resume.”
“She’s totally a hacker.”
“Obviously. But how did the headhunter know that?”
Luis taps his paper cup on the table. “Good question. Want me to find out?”
“Yeah. And get me her test results.”
“So did you like her?”
No one that hot should be so anti-social.
She thinks I’m hot. Yeah, I’ve heard it before, but never cared what humans thought about my looks. All shifters-well, all paranormals, actually-are more beautiful than humans. At least, I thought so, until I met Kylie.
“I found her… ” Fuckable? Intoxicating? Adorable in a tough-girl kind of way? Right… the tough-girl thing is an alpha trait. If Kylie were a shifter, she’d lead the females of the pack. She had all the qualities of a top female.
Luis waits for my comment. What the fuck am I going to say? Her scent is addictive. My wolf wants to claim her.
“Interesting. I found her interesting.”
I stand, wanting to prowl after Kylie into whatever office Stu has set her up in just to watch her work. My wolf doesn’t want her alone with any other male. And I like a good hunt, especially if Kylie’s my prey.
~.~
Ginrummy
He didn’t expect Kylie to be so hot. Or poised. Brilliant, yes. But he pictured her mousy. Awkward. Socially anxious like him, perhaps with glasses and her hair pulled into an absentminded knot. Maybe with a nose-piercing. Not the cute diamond-chip in the nostril, but the bull-ring in the septum tough-rebel-chick kind.
He supposes not all computer geeks are misfits, but well, anyone who spent her entire childhood online and out of the real world shouldn’t also be a certifiable brick house with high heels and juicy tits. Shouldn’t be able to look that intimidating asshole Jackson King in the eye and run her own interview as if she was the one hiring.
She looks bored, now, as her fingers dance over the keys, solving the security problems they laid out for her.
In a way, this makes things easier. She’s more like Jackson King than him. Dammit, Kylie-Catgirl-McDaniel is way out of his league. So framing her for the demise of SeCure won’t hurt as much as he imagined. Because, in his mind, she’s always been his cyber-girlfriend of sorts. Yeah, it’s stupid, but she’s female and he’s male and they’d been accomplices in the hacker world since puberty when his raging hormones needed nothing more than the name “Catgirl” to get off.
They cut their teeth together as young hackers, sharing information and their successes, passing along tips, advising others. It was dumb luck he found her after she disappeared for the past eight years. But she re-surfaced on DefCon, the old secret hacker forum where they’d always interacted, looking for help with cracking into the FBI. Naturally, he’d assisted.
He’d been looking for her for a long time. Not just out of nostalgia, although he wondered about her. She’s perfect for what he needs. There are very few hackers capable of breaking SeCure’s code. And he happens to know Catgirl is one of them. She did it before-as a teenager, no less.
So when she resurfaced, he helped her with the FBI and then followed her through their doors to see what she was up to. She deleted files on three people-a deceased married couple and their daughter, vigilante burglars, known for stealing from the dirty. She also added evidence on another criminal, including tips on his whereabouts. By digging, he gathered enough evidence to surmise she was the daughter of the cat burglar team. It fit with the sorts of questions she’d posed years before-about security systems and safes. Based on the FBI’s limited information, the criminal she’d set up for arrest had probably murdered her father during a job.
After that, it had been difficult, but he eventually found her IP address, and then it was a matter of sending a headhunter after her for a job at SeCure. Imagine his surprise to find out she lived a mere two hours away in Phoenix.
He watches her now, her glossy hair tucked behind her ear, whizzing through the stupid tests they made up for her. Oh, they were real tests-they would’ve been a challenge to anyone else, but he knew she’d pass with flying colors.
If that damned power outage hadn’t thrown her together with Jackson King, hiring her would be a sure thing. But it sounds like she said or did something to piss the CEO off. He sure as hell hopes King won’t block them from hiring her.
~.~
Kylie
I push open the door to the house I share with my grandmother. My legs are stiff after the two hour drive back to Phoenix, and I’m ready to trash these heels. “Mémé, are you home?”
My grandmother appears from the kitchen, her lined face split into a grin. “Minette!” My pet name, Minette, is the French word for kitty. My parents came up with it. My mom was French-Dad met her on a crew working an art heist in Arles. It was love at first sight, the way he told the story.
“Well, how did it go?” Mémé always speaks to me in French, and I always answer in English. I speak five languages fluently, and French is one of them, but at home I’m lazy. Or maybe it’s part of trying to be normal.