Code of Conduct (Cipher Security, #1)

by April White

“There is boring. There is sensational. There is mediocre. There is lazy. There is good. There is evil. People do implausible things all the time, and they run the gamut of moderately weird to truly extraordinary. But there is no normal. The world is an unbelievable place full of unbelievable people doing unbelievable things.” Penny Reid, Love Hacked

“A house is a place. A home is a haven.” – Miri Eze

something about the way his eyes found mine and held me … not captive, but safe.

Gabriel stood and held his hand out to me. I took it, and then felt absurdly like a princess rising from her throne, if the princess was standing on a stick and the throne was hard plastic.

Her voice was too quiet, and I thought it had cost her something to even say the words.

Why was I in a fabulous apartment with the fabulous wife of a hacker and her fabulous friend who just happened to the boss’s wife?

First, my alarm bitch-slapped me awake, which, with a lemon drop hangover and a side of overshare, was just rude.

I remembered the case, even though a husband kissing his secretary was like generic brand toilet paper – common, cheap, surprisingly uncomfortable, and likely to result in skidmarks.

“Flying kisses are ones that make your insides feel like you’re accelerating to reach altitude, and the moment you begin to soar, your chest can fill with air again, and your body floats free. I never had a flying kiss and always thought Mum was talking romantic nonsense.” He took a deep breath, looked back at his hands, and smiled. “Apparently, it wasn’t nonsense.”

“You are weird, and I’m not sorry.”

“Payback and Karma are the bitchy little sisters of Revenge, and I promise you, it’s not a family you want to mess with.” – Shane, P.I.

by suit you mean the nerd-side-of-goth, that’s him,”

“There is nothing fascinating about the male body. It is, as they say, a meat wagon to carry around a consciousness.”

It’s beautiful and desolate at the same time.”

“I actually have two legs. One just likes to dress up as a steampunk Goth.”

“You could never be normal. Extraordinary is not normal. Stunning is not normal. Brilliant is. Not. Normal.”

“I want to make love to you, Shane. But more than that, I want to talk, and run, and laugh, and wake up with you.”

“What would you ask for if you knew the answer was yes?” – Shane, P.I.

“Sometimes the loudest things in the room are the words we don’t say.” – Gabriel Eze

But then Gabriel spoke, and the constriction in my chest loosened at the sound of his voice, as if the strings on a too-tight corset had just been cut.

“You can be afraid and still strong, still fearless and indomitable. You can be afraid, and you can trust, and then when you’re ready, you can let go of the fear. Fear muffles you. Let it go, and then you can live out loud again like you’re meant to.”

barging in, but Quinn thought it would be good for

shockingly strong, and I realized that despite

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” – Miri Eze

“Honestly, sometimes people are so strange,” she continued. “We have trouble believing the good things people say – how smart, or interesting, or remarkable we are – but we have no trouble totally owning the bad stuff. If I’m going to give words any power at all, I’m going to make damn sure it’s the ones that light me up like a sunrise, you know?”