Chapter 1

My boyfriend, Ethan Cole, and my best friend, Vanessa Reed, were known around Westbridge University as the golden duo of cybersecurity.​

He was famous for offense. She was known for defense.

And me? I was the engineering and computer science student who barely scraped by.

Whenever the three of us walked together, they talked about protocol vulnerabilities, privilege escalation, and ways around access controls while I kept my head down and walked beside them.

Every now and then, Vanessa would glance back at me with a smile.

“Maya, do you have any idea how many people at Westbridge envy you? You get to hang around Ethan and me and listen in whenever you want.”

Ethan would laugh. “She can barely tell a port from an interface. Listening isn’t going to help.”