Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(66)

“Larry, I appreciate this, but this information isn’t really what I’m looking for and not just because I look like a reject from the Bee Movie.” She straightens.

My friend takes the rejection well. “Tell me what you need and I’ll see if I can find it.”

I can tell she doesn’t want to share that she suspects her father is a corrupt man who may or may not be hurting her sister. There’s a lot of information I wouldn’t want to give out about my family, either, but I don’t know how we’re going to find the evidence we need unless she’s more forthcoming.

“Hart, I know this is hard,” I murmur in a low voice, “but could you share something?”

She ponders my suggestion until an idea forms. Her face brightens, and she turns to Larry with suppressed excitement. “You’re a good hacker?”

“I don’t want to brag but I’m better at getting into computers than East is at getting into a girl’s pants.”

I bop him across the top of his head. “Dammit, Larry.”

“Hey, sorry, it was the only comparison that popped in my head.”

“Never mind.” Hart waves her hand. “I don’t care about that. If I told you my phone number, could you access my past text messages?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s not hard, especially if I have your number. I can access your emails, call logs, app downloads, photos, and maybe even voicemails. What is it?”

She reels it off.

“Go sit over there. It’ll take me a bit. I have to hack into the SS7. Every text message in the world passes through Signaling System No. 7. Did you know that governments can track your movements anywhere in the world with just your cell phone? They also listen in. You should really install programs on your phones that alert you to an SS7 attack. That two-factor authentication doesn’t stop it, either. That’s just something the government pushes you to have to make you feel safe. They’re always watching. Dummy phones are good too. I change my phone every three months.”

I lead Hart over to a pair of slouchy leather sofas as Larry drones on about the dangers of cell phone communication.

“I hope the FBI agent who’s assigned to me isn’t too bored, because I stopped watching porn this summer,” I joke, pulling Hartley down next to me. I stretch out my legs and try to relax.

Beside me, Hart sits like she’s at church, with her hands curled around each knee cap, her shoulders tight, and her face straight forward with her eyes pinned on Larry’s back.

I reach up and rub her neck. “What do you think will be on your texts?”

“I don’t know, but it must’ve been important enough for my parents to want to get rid of my phone.”

“That’s true.” I hadn’t thought of it that way. I assumed that her folks wanted to keep her memories blank so she wouldn’t remember spying on her father, but maybe it was to hide something specific.

“You think you had pictures or recorded some audio?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. If I did, why didn’t I confront him before? Why did I come back after three years?”

“You were fourteen when you were sent away. What were you going to do at the age of fourteen?” I hate that she feels guilty about this. She’s a kid. She shouldn’t have to deal with this shit. Just like I shouldn’t have had to deal with my mom’s suicide, my dad’s abandonment, and my idol’s betrayal.

Adults should be protecting their kids, not destroying their lives.

“It’s not your fault,” I say. “You did what you could to survive.”

I’m saying it more for myself than anything. I’ve done drugs, drank too much alcohol, screwed too many girls, but all I was trying to do was survive. I pull her rigid frame against mine and hold her. I hold her until the stiffness drains away, until she stops staring a hole into Larry’s back, until she curls onto my lap and clings to me.

Hartley’s a small girl. I forget that sometimes when she’s fighting with me or smarting off like she did with Larry earlier. But in my arms, I feel her fragility. She tries hard to solve her own problems. Before her accident, she was so closed off—not willing to share even one morsel of information with me. I had to drag everything out of her.

I see why now. Sordid secrets are ones that you try to bury in your basement, not wear like a cape around your shoulders. Now she’s finally leaning on my shoulders, but there’s a sense of hopelessness in the way she sighs and shifts. I brush a hand down the back of her head, tangling my fingers in the spill of her long, inky dark hair.

“If this doesn’t work, then we’ll find something that will.”

“I know,” she mumbles.

She doesn’t sound convinced. I tip her chin up so she can see the sincerity in my eyes. “I’m not going to stop here,” I promise her. “However long it takes, however hard it is, I’m with you.”

She blinks, her silvery eyes flashing in and out from under her black lashes. I keep rubbing her back, riding the bumps of her spine with my fingers. Trying to infuse some warmth into her chilled frame.

She takes one deep breath and then another and then another until the tension finally drains out of her.

“Okay. We’re a team.” She holds out her hand.

I shake it and then bring it to my mouth. “A team.”