Page 76 of Embrace Me Forever

“Stop, Blake! You’ve got it all wrong!” she snaps. “I told you Sebastian and I were engaged. The ring was just a surprise, that’s all.”

“What else aren’t you telling me, Georgia-May?”

“Before he died, Sebastian messed with Bertram’s system. He’s been slowly tearing it apart, even from his grave,” she reveals.

I growl in frustration. “How bad is it for Hartley Marine?”

“We need to fix the issues with my code first. I can’t tell how bad the damage is yet. I swear, I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Georgia-May has always been full of surprises, mostly wonderful ones, but this revelation hurts. After she opened up about Sebastian that night, finding out that she hid this feels like a betrayal. Now, it’s not just about us. It’s about Rob and Clay, too, the very people I swore to protect long before she came into my life.

When we pullinto Hartley Marine, Rob and Clay are already on site, pacing the floor with lines of worry marking their faces. We gather around Thomas, Hartley’s IT director, who looks just as harried.

His voice carries a mix of fatigue and alarm as he starts, “We’ve been fending off hacking attempts into our systems since last night—all of them coming from Europe,” he admits, wearily adjusting his glasses. “I didn’t see the pattern at first, but after your warning, it all makes sense. These attacks are linked to the code Georgia-May developed, which I activated to enhance the navigation systems of a few test yachts.”

Georgia-May crumples, her hands covering her face as if to ward off the grief threatening to engulf her. I stand there, my own heart aching for her, yet disbelief gnaws at me. How could I have been so blind? The very issue I had so casually dismissed—her fucking dead boyfriend—now extends its tentacles over everything. It’s an insidious threat, and I’m powerless to stop. I’d underestimated the depth of his influence, and now we’re all paying the price for my oversight.

“Calm down, Georgia-May,” Thomas says, a cautious note in his tone. He then pulls a chair over for her to sit beside him. “The good news is, the code is still isolated. It was live, but it hasn’t interacted with any of our other operational systems.”

Guided by Georgia-May, Thomas brings up the questionable segments of code on his screen. The rest of us lean in as she takes control of the keyboard, her fingers moving quickly.

“I thought this protocol was entirely my own design,” she admits, a frown creasing her forehead as she scrolls through line after line of code. Moments later, her shoulders slumpslightly as the realization of her error dawns on her. “I see now where I went wrong,” she murmurs, pointing out the flawed sequences that mirrored those she’d inadvertently borrowed from Sebastian.

Georgia-May’s middle finger stabs at the down arrow key repeatedly, her eyes flying up and down the screen, searching for something. Then she stops, darting between monitors as she edits, tests, and re-edits a segment of her code. “I swear, I didn’t even realize I was using it when I did this,” she explains with desperation.

“So what can we do?” Rob asks, his tone stern and demanding.

“We can’t just delete the code. Doing so might trigger an embedded fail-safe within the malware. If the malware detects tampering, it could activate a secondary routine designed to spread itself further. We need to reverse the changes methodically,” she replies, her hands trembling slightly over the keyboard.

“Wait!” Thomas interrupts, his eyes widening as he catches something on another monitor. “I think Bertram has managed to deploy a cloaked subroutine, something that’s bypassing our detection algorithms. We’ve gone offline, but they’re still breaching our defenses. I need my team to verify the integrity of our live systems.” He rushes to another desk, frantically dialing his team.

The color drains from Georgia-May’s face as the gravity of Thomas’s discovery sinks in. “I’m so, so sorry, Rob, Clay…Blake,” she stammers. “I never intended to put any of you at risk.”

The room thickens with tension, the situation looking increasingly dire as they grapple with the realization that their security measures might not be enough to stave off the intrusion.

Unable to stand the pressure in the room, I find myself backing away. This is too much. Before I say things I might regret, I step out of the room, the sounds of debate and discussion fading behind the closing door.

26

GEORGIA-MAY

My gaze remains locked on the screen, immersed in streams of data, yet I can’t shake off the sudden void. A quick look over my shoulder confirms the worst: Blake is gone. My stalwart companion in this chaos just disappeared. How could he leave like that? Yes, I had my secrets about Cristo, and I made a huge mistake with QEOPA. But he should know that this is when I need him more than ever.

Clayton’s footsteps echo briefly before he, too, exits in pursuit of Blake, leaving the digital battlefield to me, Thomas, and Rob.

Thomas leans closer to the monitor, his voice cutting through the static of my thoughts, “Do you recognize these data streams? They could be the hacker’s signature.”

My fingers fly over the keyboard as I pull up the network’s log. “This code—it triggered a ping back to any previously connected device.” I type rapidly, lines of code scrolling down as I track the pings.

“Surely, these aren’t the same as those European calls we’ve detected before,” Thomas frowns.

“This ping here is to my laptop. Nothing to worry about. This one belonged to Cristo. He warned me about it.” I pause, a chill running down my spine as more lines appear. “And these—these are alien, not just from another part of the world but orchestrated. Some are coming from Europe, and several nodes are from across California. They’re too close for comfort.”

Rob says, “They’re here, and they’re making themselves known.”

Thomas’s phone buzzes, the ringtone cutting sharply through the tense silence of the room. He answers with a curt “Yes,” listens for a moment, then hangs up with a grave nod.

Frantically, I begin to implement a series of diagnostic tests. I tweak the network’s encryption algorithms, initiate a recursive trace to identify any rogue elements, and even deploy a virtual honeypot to bait the intruder. All to no avail. Each attempt meets a dead end, and frustration wells inside me, tears threatening to break free.

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