License To Steal (And Flirt)

ter

s, blackout curtains, and a wine fridg

I

was old me. Young, scrappy, barely scraping toget

jazz club in the old quarter-because apparently, the universe

months ago. The only way to access it is by swiping a very specific access card (mine),

boots with a satisfied grunt. The scent of ozone, citru

n the corner. A giant wall of servers blinked at me from behind a glass divider. My couch was leather, deep brown,

still pulsed through

stolen folder onto the kitchen island beside a half-eaten crois

d with soot. Charcoal still streaked m

isaster. A hot, v

fter. Ambient jazz started playing-something

bottle of peach soda, and leaned back

it open and scanned the contents. Names. Financial tra

t in the

e of a man in

n tactic

at sharp jaw. That "I'm too serious for my own good" glower. The wa

in th

ust a

arg

. "Well, aren't you a s

h, and dragged my laptop over from the coffee table. It bo

d databases, a burner contact checking into his agency credentials, and a

I'd find him. If he wasn'

surprised even me: it wasn

s abo

t hate. Not even confusion. He looked at me like he

me. I didn't usually

I wasn

treets away. A man matching his build

the monito

e he

rage, storming back to a blacked-ou

aug

g to have to work

Black silk sheets. A bed you could drown in. A weapons rack on one wa

afe hidden under my nightstand an

agency

t Glower

ity play

as

just getti