Finding Romeo

Chapter 15

(Talia's POV)

My fingers typed slowly across the keyboard as if I was trying to make sure that I was typing in the correct code. I knew exactly what I was doing though and it wasn't trying my hardest to hack in, I was stalling.

Stalling for time, hoping that I could my opening for some kind of escape. I hate already had to clean their computer from all of the Doritos cheese prints all over it. The smell still filled the air as Tony dumped the remnants of another bag of them into his mouth, crunching on them loudly. The guy had a serious addiction to those things, it wasn't a healthy habit at all and was surprised that he was as thin as he was with all the carbs he plowed through.

Maybe if he ate himself out of Doritos he would leave to get more, though by the bulk box of Doritos setting in the middle of the floor, we'd be here for awhile before he ran out.

I focused back on the coding, wondering how I could stall without making it more obvious that I was doing so. I wished that Mr. Vladimirs' men would spot me hacking in and try to hold me off, but so far there has been no resistance. In one spot, I had to code myself an extra wall to hack through while they weren't paying attention, pretending it was a hard wall to hack through.

I was running out of ideas and time.

Something caught my eye on the screen and I ignored it at first, figuring it was just a reflection on the screen of Tony grabbing another bag of Doritos. When it didn't go away, I focused on it, wondering if it was a bug or if my eyes were seeing things.

Either I was hallucinating or there was a tiny rose on the screen. The rose was smaller than the arrow of the mouse on the screen and I froze and watched as the rose blossomed again and again.

I took a shaky breath, my eyes blurring and my heart beating hard as warmth and relief filled me.

Romeo was here.

Even though I didn't know him very well, he was like my saving grace, there when I needed him. Wasn't that what counted in people though,that they were there for you when you needed them? This was his way of showing me that he was here to help. Rather or not I could completely trust him or if he had got ahold of Luka was irrelevant.

I could feel the hope and strength that I could get out of this and that I wasn't alone.

I wondered how much Romeo could see or hear of me. Tony had the camera on the laptop covered, so at most he could hear what was being said by everyone in the room.

"How's that hacking going?" Tony asked through a mouthful of Doritos.

I started moving my fingers across the keyboard, continuing hacking through the walls. "It's good, just another wall I didn't expect."

"Well, you better hurry. I'm turning into a skeleton here." Tony grumbled.

If I wasn't being held against my will by guys with guns, I would have rolled my eyes. But as it was, I didn't feel that comfortable here. Romeo was there to help me and by the coding on the screen, he was coding his own walls in front of me.

I frowned and leaned forward, typing lines of coding after lines of coding, trying to break through them. Romeo's coding ability was incredible, it made me wonder what kind of job he had or if he worked in the government for security. His coding was that good.

I was taking the same challenge as I did when I first met him, trying to out code him. It made me look busy and I figured Romeo had already coded way ahead of me already.

It took me fifteen minutes to hack through the first wall, only to find another wall hidden behind it. The tiny rose continued to blossom on the side as I tried to concentrate. The second wall was a lot harder, making me feel like I had run into a brick wall.