Page 2 of Undercover Hacker

The man in the shadows glanced in my direction then pointed at me. “Is there a reason she looks like you beat the crap out of her?” He sounded angry. It was hard to tell, though, because he was talking through something that made it hard to hear.

“She gave me problems.”

The man pointed his gun at the thug who had dragged me from my room and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun echoed through the living room. Then he pointed to the other thug.

“Hurry up and kill the bitch. Grab the children, and let’s move.”

The man in the shadows had done me a favor. That was one less person I would need to find and kill. From his calm demeanor and the way the men looked nervous around him, I knew he was the leader and one of the men I would come after. If I made it out of this situation alive, my life’s mission would be to identify this man and kill him.

The nasally man, who had dragged Kat from the bedroom and shoved her onto the couch, pointed his gun at my mom. His hand was shaking, as though he was scared for his life. His friend layon the floor, not moving.

My mom was the sweetest woman in the world and would never hurt a fly. How could these men want her dead? Kat was on the couch next to my mom. I was on the floor, only a few feet away. They thought I had passed out.

“Nooo!”

I launched myself in front of the gun at the same time it went off. The bullet hit me in the stomach. Pain radiated through me so strongly that the world went black. The last thing I remember is two more guns shots.

* * *

I could hearthe muttering of people around me and a faint beeping in the background. My limbs felt heavy. I reflected on the last thing I could recall—the memory of the men who had invaded my house. The last thing I remembered was jumping in front of the bullet. I wondered if my mom and Kat were okay. If I had made it, maybe they had, too, and were in the room with me. I listened hard to the voices.

“Did they find the men responsible for hurting this child? I want to take them to a dark alley and teach them a lesson.”

“No. I hate when we see cases like this come in. They’re always the hardest.”

Then silence again. I couldn’t open my eyes, and I was so tired that I fell back to sleep, hoping the next time I came awake, my mom’s voice would be the one I heard.

“Oh, the poor girl. Did you find who did this?”

“No. I don’t think the police will find the people responsible. This girl is special. I want to do this outside of child protective services. I will send you money every month until she graduates, and when I want to see her, I will.” The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t open my eyes to see who it was. They were still so heavy.

“Oh, we have always wanted children, but don’t have enough money for an adoption. Of course we’ll take her, Juan. You can see her whenever you want for giving us this gift. Did the authorities find her sister?”

I don’t want to live with this woman. I want my mom. Why is my mom not in the room? Kat’s missing? Why won’t my lips move so I can ask questions?

“I will pay for the therapy she’ll need to deal with losing her parents and her sister. The doctor told me she had to have a salpingectomy. While the doctor was able to save one of her Fallopian tubes, Sophie has a very slim chance of ever having children.”

I had lost my mom and my dad. Having kids was the furthest thing from my mind. From this point forward, my sole objective in life would be to find my sister and eliminate the men who had destroyed my family. I remembered what the tattoo looked like, so I would start with him. No matter what happened in the future, my only goal would be to get Kat back. Kat was the only family I had left.

1

Sophie

The stress of living a double life was wearing on me. Withholding information from Bridget was making my stomach turn. I knew that if I told my longtime friend and boss what had happened in the past and what I was doing now, she would help. Not wanting to drag my friends into my dark past, I made a deal with the devil to get me closer to my goal. But, the devil kept requesting more of me without giving me the information I needed to take down the people who killed my family.

The devil would figure out soon that I had hacked their system to get the information about Jessica’s kidnappers. When the trail led back to my computer, they would come for me this time. They had been waiting for an excuse to bring me in and make me work for them full time. Jessica was worth what I would go through.

Jessica had been kidnapped by a terrorist organization. She had become part of my family. Her twin sister used to work for us at White Hat Security before she met Sam, her fiancé. Now Patty and Sam were living in Shialia, working to take over the crown.

Jessica’s fiancé, Brock, was a skilled hacker, but he didn’t have access to the same files I did. Jessica and Patty’s dad was the king of Shialia, and he had slept around. Axmed had been the king’s illegitimate son and the head of the terrorist organization that went after Jessica ten years ago. They had gone after her again recently. After she had been kidnapped, I hacked into a database to discover the details needed to get her back. Brock and his group rescued Jessica before she was killed.

The shouting from the reception area of White Hat Security brought me back to the present. Bridget’s voice went from yelling to screaming. A loudbanghad me moving faster. I figured I had better go calm her down before I had to bail her out jail.

“Miss, we are here for Sophie Stewart. This has nothing to do with you.”

The sound of my full name had me slowing my steps. I peered around the corner to see a few men in black suits. I knew they were here for me. Needing to hide a couple of things before they took me in, I hightailed it back to my office. Bridget would hold them off. She was either trying to protect me or to give me time to hide what I needed to before these men got to me. The pink external drive plugged into the front of my computer contained the work I did for the devil. I removed the drive and hid it in the ceiling tiles. I grabbed my purse and headed back to the reception area.

“I don’t care who you think you are. I want to see a warrant. You can’t just come in here and demand to talk to my employees without some form of documentation. We do nothing illegal here.” Bridget was screaming. The whole office stood around her, trying to figure out what was going on.

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