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maintain some distance with Alli while she was involved with Heath. I had swiftly refused and ignored his wish, and thankfully that had been the end of the discussion. With everything I’d been going through at the time, the last thing I needed was to isolate myself from the few people I could go to for support.
    “No. I think she needs some space to figure things out while Heath is gone. I don't think she’s had a chance to be very independent since she moved to the city.” I hesitated with the last thought. I wanted to tread lightly. Blake and Heath had their issues, but they were still brothers. I didn't want to cause problems between Heath and Alli if he didn't know about the move yet.
    He nodded. “How's work?”
    “Good and bad.”
    “Oh?”
    I finished my last bite of the spaghetti before choosing my words.
    “I hired a marketing director. She starts Monday and Alli is going to help me bring her up to speed with where she left off.”
    “And the bad?”
    “I’m getting concerned with the security of the site. Sid is ready to pull his hair out. I don’t know what to tell him.” I risked a questioning look his way. I was approaching a subject he hated discussing.
    He sat back and threw his napkin on the table. “You won’t give me access to the code, Erica. What the hell do you want me to do?”
    “It’s not out of distrust, Blake. We need to be in control of the code for the long-term and you know that. Yet we all remain in the dark as to why we’ve been inexplicably and relentlessly attacked by this group.”
    He stared past me, avoiding my eyes and the pleading in them. An uneasy knot formed in my stomach. I hated his secrets. They ate at me like my own once used to, before I poured my heart and soul out to Blake. Revealing my past to him had lessened the burden, but I didn't know how to make him trust me the same way.
    “You want my trust, Blake. This is why I have a hard time giving it so freely. You keep things from me.”
    “If I’m not forthcoming with information, it’s for your own good.”
    “Can’t I decide what’s for my own good? Jesus, I’m not a child.”
    He muttered a curse under his breath, moved to the living room, and sank into the couch.
    I chose a seat on the other couch, unsure how the rest of this conversation would go. A safer, less sexual distance might be better if we were going to accomplish anything constructive.
    “You said you would fix this. You promised me. And if it's not that easy, fine, but I deserve to know what's really going on here. Maybe I can help.”
    He exhaled through his nose and let his head fall back on the couch. “You already know that I was a member of M89 when I was a teenager.”
    “Yes,” I said quietly.
    He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, avoiding my eyes. “What you don’t know is that I led the group with someone else.”
    “Who?” My voice was quiet and tentative. I didn’t want to give him any reason not to tell me the things I so wanted—needed—to know.
    “Cooper. His name was Brian Cooper.”
    I paused. “Was?”
    His jaw ticked. He pushed back his dark brown hair that had grown longer since we’d met and fell unkempt across his forehead. I wanted to reach over and fix it but didn’t want to interrupt the moment.
    “He killed himself.”
    “Oh my God.” I touched my hand to my mouth. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about this. “When?”
    “After the group was busted for hacking the bank accounts, they brought us all in. Except I’d been out of the operation for weeks. Cooper had been a friend, and when we came up with the original plan, I was on board for hacking the Wall Street guys, but then he’d wanted to start in on individual accounts. Regular people who invested their hopes of retirement with these jerks, but beyond that, had no connections to their Ponzi shit. I couldn’t get behind it so I left the group. Our friendship was over, and obviously there was bad blood between us. When