His Nasty Virgin

JESSE

If Pegasus Star Security was my castle, then my office chair was my throne. A throne that my younger brother, Devin, had no problem marking up with his dirty shoes.

“For the love of God,” I grumbled. “Would you sit like a normal human being? You’re going to ruin your back like that. Not to mention destroy the leather. I had this chair imported from Italy, you know.”

Devin scoffed but didn’t budge. He was too preoccupied with whatever was on his laptop, which was perched precariously on the tops of his knees. “Whatever you say,

Mom.”

“Grown-ass man, but you sit like a child.”

“I’m doing you a favor here,” he pointed out. “Do you want me to help you set up a new cybersecurity division or not? I’ve got plenty of offers from other companies in

Chicago who are willing to pay me way more.”

I clicked my tongue. I loved my brother, but sometimes he could be the world’s biggest pain in the ass. If I wanted to give Pegasus Star a leading edge against other security firms in Chicago, I needed to branch out and offer my clients digital protection as well as physical. We both knew that he was the leading expert in cybersecurity analytics from here to Dallas. I wouldn’t find anyone better.Exclusive © content by N(ô)ve/l/Drama.Org.

Growing up, Devin had always been considered the intelligent one. We were both smart, but he was sharp. Too much for his old, in my opinion. It got him into his fair share of trouble with the other boys in the trailer park. Most of them didn’t take too kindly to being shown up time after time.

And while Devin had excellent wit, he wasn’t so good with fists. That was where his big brother came in. I dragged him out of more fights than I could count. I won far more often than I lost, but one thing remained the same: no matter how much of a pain in the ass he was, we’d always be there for each other.

Which was exactly why I knew Devin was full of it.

“Please,” I said with a snort. “If you wanted to work with someone else, you would have done that already. Didn’t Google offer you a hefty paycheck to join them?”

Devin’s fingers flew over his keyboard. He was coding a new server system for my firm. That, or hacking into the Matrix. Both were perfectly valid options.

“I don’t like working for suits,” he muttered.

“You work for me.”

“No, I work with you. There’s a difference.” He pressed the Enter key several times. “If I’d taken that job with Google, there would have been some supervisor with a superiority complex because they graduated from MIT breathing down my neck the whole time. I prefer freelancing.”

“What makes you think that I’m not going to breathe down your neck the whole time.”

“Because you know for a fact I would never put up with that shit, so you’re not going to try in the first place.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so fucking annoying.”

“Right back at you.”

“How’s everything coming along? You going to take much longer?”

Devin glared at me. “This isn’t like the movies. I can’t create an entire security server with a couple of clicks. It’s complicated. You wouldn’t tell a brain surgeon to hurry up in the middle of an operation, would you?”

“I might. If they had their damn feet up on my desk.”

My brother hummed. “Jesus.”

“What?”

“Your calendar’s full.”

I frowned. “The hell are you doing going through my calendar?”

“I’m waiting for my codes to load.”

“That’s not an invitation to go snooping. It’s supposed to be password protected.”

Devin shot me an Are you kidding me look. “As your future head of cybersecurity, it’s my recommendation that you don’t set your password as password. That’s asking for trouble.” Before I could get a word in, Devin continued, “Seriously, Jesse. Look at this. Do you even have time to breathe?”

I paced around my office. “It’s none of your business.”

“Training new hires… Client briefings… Even your meals are scheduled.”

“By design,” I noted. “It’s the nature of running a security firm.”

“When was the last time you took a vacation?”

“I don’t need one.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

I thought about it briefly. The last time I had a real vacation was when Wally was eleven. Melissa and I were still married, albeit our relationship had taken a turn for the worse We were as emotionally distant as two people could be, hanging onto the threads of our marriage for Wally’s sake. I took them both on a trip to Paris for two weeks. It was fun for the most part, as long as I deliberately ignored all of Melissa’s passive aggressiveness. It was the last trip we ever took as a family.

I found Melissa in bed with Alexei five months later. I filed for divorce by the end of the day.

“Years,” I grumbled.

Devin set his laptop down on my desk and -finally- put his feet on the floor. “Look, man. I’m not telling you what to do, but you should take a break every once and a while.

You’ll go bald faster if you’re under constant stress.”

“My hairline is fine, thank you.”

“Seriously. It’s not good for your health. Remember what happened to Dad?”

I set my jaw. I didn’t like talking about our father. “Dad did everything he could to provide for us.”

“Yes. And he worked himself to the grave.”

“He had a heart attack. It happens.”

“He had a heart attack because he was pulling triple shifts four times a week.”

“To put food on the table,” I snapped. “To buy you those advanced textbooks you wanted. To give us a better life.”

“I know you looked up to him-”

“Of course I did. Dad gave up everything for us so we could succeed. He taught us that hard work was the only way out of that dump of a trailer park. Now look at us.” I gestured vaguely about the space. “We did it. We got out. The only way to have a good life is to work hard. Making excuses and taking breaks… That’s the fastest way back to that hell hole.”

Devin closed his laptop and exhaled slowly. “You believe that?”

I pressed my lips into a thin line. I could still remember the late nights when Dad would come home well after midnight exhausted, dripping in sweat, and hands covered in grime. He’d pass out on the couch so he didn’t have to disturb us as he passed our room. At the crack of dawn, he was up again to take a quick shower and scarf down a bowl of cereal before heading off to his morning job.

We didn’t have much. Prospects were limited. Money was always tight, and bills were always paid a day or two late. When I turned sixteen, I offered to drop out and get a job. Do the honorable thing. Devin had all the smarts, anyway. He had a way better chance of getting into a good college than I did. Dad wouldn’t have any of it.

“Hard work is the only way to get out on top,” I said.

A long pause settled over the office. My brother simply sighed and stood up. “If you say so,” he mumbled, clearly not wanting to drag this out any further. “I’m done for the day. I’m going to have to come back tomorrow to finish up. Whoever you hired to install your firm’s firewall was an idiot. They left a huge backdoor. Anyone with intermediate coding experience could get through and gain access to all the files they wanted.”

I frowned. “That’s a security breach waiting to happen. Did you-”

“Already took care of it. Don’t worry. I’m not even going to charge you extra. Consider it a family discount.” “Thank you for your generosity,” I replied dryly.

“All work and no play makes Jesse a dull boy,” Devin muttered amusedly to himself as he left.

I pretended to ignore him. There