Delgano: The Intro - Page 105

Atlas

Stay safe.

Cipher

Stamps.

You get?

By now, Mora had to know that the stamps were gone, but she was certain her mother either believed it couldn’t be her who’d taken them, or that even if it was, she couldn’t do anything with them.

But Atlas had asked her to look for stamps.

So, she looked for stamps.

Cipher

Good?

Not Good?

Atlas

Brilliant.

Microdot.

Cipher

Okay.

Be safe, friend.

Julien Hunter tilted back in his chair, sighed, and clasped his hands behind his head. Ari, his wife of less than a year—he still couldn’t believe she said yes—kissed his cheek and pressed hers against the tingling sensation he felt whenever she kissed him.

“Sayeda, you said her name was?” she asked. “And her mother’s the one you’ve been playing TOR tag with?”

“Weird way to put it,” he said, laughing. “But yeah, I think so. I think she’s Mora Bentley’s kid, the Lieutenant General. Sayeda’s the one who sent me the info that verified Mora Bentley’s who I might be looking for.”

“You tell me everything, don’t you?”

“Not everything.” He smiled, enjoying the warmth of her face against his. “By the way, Ari, I still can’t believe you built this program when you were fifteen.”

“I built the prototype. You were the one who perfected it.”

“Stay in cybersecurity, babe. You were the youngest person at that tech conference where we met, and you started college the year before. You’re a genius.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He snatched her around the waist and brought her down onto his lap. They were still very young, but whenever he looked at her, he saw a future filled with multiple children, and he wanted to get started on the first one soon.

“Will you tell Gage?” she asked, her face crumpling. “If you don’t, me and Mo can.”

“Not until I’m certain,” he reassured her. “I don’t want to get it wrong again. This news by itself will break him, and I don’t want to tell him if I’m not one hundred percent sure we got the wrong guy.”

The screen chirped.

Curtis Savea’s face appeared.