Omega Sector agent Cain Bennett sat in the back row of a Georgia courthouse waiting for the judge to come in and sentence the woman Cain had loved since he was sixteen years old.
Hayley Green, the woman Cain had arrested.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, then leaned forward to rest the weight of his forearms on his knees. Hayley currently sat ramrod straight at the table directly in front of the judge’s bench, in a Fulton County orange jumpsuit, her straight blond hair in a ponytail behind her. She was obviously ignoring the whispers from the crowd that was here to see her sentenced. Press, government figures, even some people from their small Georgia hometown who wanted to be able to report the gossip live filled the room.
You would think she was about to be sentenced for murder rather than computer hacking.
He still hadn’t figured out why Hayley chose to use her ninja-like computer skills illegally, to hack the College Entrance Test—CET—system. The exam, which allowed students to get their results back instantly rather than having to wait months like previous standardized tests, was supposed to be unhackable. Questions completely random.
Hayley and her cohorts had figured out not how to hack the test, but how to build false exams into the system. Ones that the system thought were real and that gave the students who “took” them real scores and credit.
Rich students were willing to pay handsomely for these false exams and scores, which would, in essence, assure their acceptance into any college they desired. A pretty nifty scam when it was all said and done. But why she had done it, Cain had no idea. The girl he’d known in high school would never have.
And Hayley sure as hell wasn’t going to offer any reasons why to Cain. She was refusing to talk to him at all.
He gritted his teeth in a constant tension he’d lived with for the past several months. Yes, he’d reignited his relationship with Hayley because of the hacking case.
But because he’d thought she might be able to put him in contact with some of the hackers, not because he thought she was one of them.
But to her it just looked like he’d slept with her as part of some damn sting operation.
Cain looked up at Hayley’s still, stiff form in the chair. God, he’d made a mess of things. She had, too. Why the hell had she been hacking? Become a criminal? She knew he’d dedicated his life to law enforcement. Choosing to break the law was like a slap in the face after what they’d once shared.
But hopefully the judge would take into consideration that Hayley had no prior convictions, no arrests. She’d pleaded no contest in order to not drag out the case and cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in a trial. Cain, as the agent who had been in charge of the investigation, had petitioned for no jail time for Hayley.
Parole with limited computer usage, definitely. But Hayley wasn’t dangerous. Had no intent to harm others. Time already served would be a perfect sentence for her.
She might not like it, but Cain planned to be a lot more present in her life. He’d been wrong to let them grow so far apart as he’d gone to college, then the FBI training academy, before joining Omega Sector. They’d talked via social media and email, but he obviously had not been privy to what was really going on in her life. Aka: criminal activities.
That would stop now.
The judge would release her today, and tomorrow Cain would begin to bulldoze his way back into her life. She’d be mad—hell, so was he—but they would work through it. They had too much history, too much passion, too much rightness to be without each other for long. Hayley Green was his, the same way he was hers. They had been for over ten years.
Beginning tomorrow, he was going to make sure his little felon had her own law enforcement agent keeping her on the straight and narrow. Cain smiled slightly. It wouldn’t be easy, but she was worth it. They were worth it.
The bailiff announced for all to rise as the judge entered the courtroom. Everyone sat back down as the judge asked Hayley to stand.
Cain listened as the judge spoke to Hayley about computer crimes, although not violent, not being victimless. He grew more tense as the judge pointed out that she’d stolen not just from the company that developed and ran the CET, but from students around the country who had missed out on the opportunity of college acceptance and scholarship because of the test results she had sold for money.
Bile began to burn at the back of his throat when the judge said that Hayley had not just hacked computers, she had stolen futures.
This was not good.
“Today,” the judge continued, “I feel that it is important to set an example. To show that people like you, Ms. Green—young, intelligent, able to work—will be held to strict standards when you choose to break the law. To discourage others from making the same choices.”
Cain wanted to stand up. Stop time. Do something. Because the next words to come out of the judge’s mouth were going to alter Cain’s entire world.
He couldn’t imagine what they were going to do to Hayley’s.
“Hayley Green, you have pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of first-degree computer crimes, which is a class B felony, with a sentence of up to twenty years in prison. This court hereby sentences you to ten years at the Georgia Women’s Correctional Institution, Minimum Security Campus, eligible for parole not before four years.”
Cain saw Hayley’s body jerk as the gavel came down against the sound block on the judge’s bench. The judge said a few more things and then court was dismissed.
Cain couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Feeling like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room, he stared at Hayley, still standing stiffly at the table as her lawyer murmured something in her ear. Hayley’s cousin Ariel, the only family present, was crying softly in the row behind her.
Four years. Hayley would spend at least four years in prison.
And Cain had sent her there.
People began filing out around him, but Cain couldn’t force himself to move. Couldn’t stop looking at Hayley. Couldn’t figure out how to make this right.
Things would never be right again.
An officer came over to her and asked her to move to the other side of the table so he could handcuff her. She did, moving slowly, like she was in shock. Which she had to be.
Four years.
As the officer turned her so he could cuff her, Hayley’s eyes met Cain’s. He took a step toward her, unable to help himself.
He expected tears, or terror, or even hatred to light her eyes as she looked at him, skin across her cheekbones pale and drawn.
But her eyes were dead, emotionless. She looked at him as though