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FREYA
Little Plum,my all-time favorite ramen spot, buzzes softly around me.
Legit, this place isamazing.
Now, granted, I’ve never actually been to Japan, which I’m guessing would alter Little Plum’s spot at the top of my favorite ramen joints. But for now, this place is theshit.
Plus, they run it more like a café than a restaurant, meaning they don’t justtoleratelaptops, but actually encourage you to sit and hang for as long as you like.
I’ve been coming here ever since discovering it when Annika and I first got to New York. Usually it’s a Zen place for me, but tonight, it does little to ease the storm that’s been building inside me all day.
I sit at a small table, slurping down mychashuramen while running some security checks on Kir’s home network. Since he runs a ton of his business through it—both legal andillegal—part of my job is making sure the thing is utterly secure. So I’mtryingto focus on that, but I’m not really succeeding.
Because ofhim.
FuckingMal.
The Crown Prince of Malevolence. Maliciousness incarnate.
Everything about him messes with my head—his presence, the way he looks at me, the darkness that constantly swirls around him. I should be able to shut it out. Shuthimout.
But I can’t.
No matter how hard I try to focus on the screen in front of me, he’s there, lingering in the back of my mind, a shadow I can’t escape.
I sigh, rubbing a hand over my tired eyes, forcing myself to concentrate. I need to get thisdone. Kir’s been waiting on the security updates for days now, and I can’t afford to fall behind. But my mind won’t settle. Won’t let me forget the way Mal looked at me. The words he growled at me.
I shake my head, trying to shake the thoughts with it. I take another slurp of ridiculously tasty pork ramen, but it’s no use. I’m restless, my thoughts spinning in a hundred different directions, not one of them related to the task at hand.
“Excuse me?”
A soft voice pulls me from my spiraling thoughts. I blink, looking up to see an Asian girl sitting at the table next to mine. Her dark hair is swept up in a messy ponytail, and she’s dressed…well…like me.
Black skinny jeans, a black hoodie, and jewelry on her wrists and fingers that would fit in just fine at a fetish club. She wincesbehind her dark, thick-rimmed glasses as she looks at me with a pleading look.
“I hate to ask, but do you mind if I borrow your phone charger for a few minutes? I forgot mine at the hotel like an idiot.”
Her voice is heavily accented, but her English is flawless.
I blink again, shifting my mind from Mal to the present and finding my social footing.
“Oh—yeah, of course,” I say, rummaging in my bag and pulling out my charger. “Here. Take it for as long as you need, I’ll be here a while.”
The girl smiles, relief washing over her features. “Thanks so much. Yousavedme.”
I give her a small smile in return. “No prob.”
As she plugs the charger into her laptop, I happen to glance at her screen. Honestly, I’m a nosy shit and I look at people’s screens in public all the fucking time. But when I glance at hers, my attention is instantly snagged by something familiar. The girl’s doing encryption work.
Ugh, I can’t help myself when I spot another security nerd.
“Sorry, is that a twofish-based GPD encryption algorithm?”
Her face lights up as her head whips back to me. “Yeah!” Then her brows knit behind her glasses. “Wow, good spot! Are you…?”
I nod, feeling an odd sense of kinship settle over me. “Yeah. I do security work mostly; building networks, some code modeling training.”
Her eyebrows raise in interest. “That’s awesome!”
