Page 2 of Hacker Beloved

"No, you keep coming up with excuses. After this case, it’s time for us to take a few days off and work the details of our life out."

Only because the damn man is stubborn as hell and wouldn't let me sign a prenup, no matter how many times I asked or how many ways I worded it. He would end up riding my ass for hours. He was right, we had a lot to work out. It was time, but first, we had to figure out what happened to Zayla. I placed a quick kiss on Asher's lips before I pulled back. "I agree we need some time away. The photo rendered."

I held up the three-dimensional image I had just created, and my hand shook with anticipation. The screen flashed, and the lock screen vanished. I tapped the Ring app. Unfortunately, the battery to her doorbell was dead, and no new video was taken in over a week.

Asher's face contorted in rage as he spoke. "How could she be so careless? With no fence around her property, anybody could have taken her! She has no motion detector on the driveway, making it so anyone could pull right up to her house unannounced." He gestured wildly as he spoke, punctuating each sentence with an angry thrust of his arm.

I rolled my eyes and threw my hands up in the air in a show of mock surprise. "Is it so unbelievable people don’t have gates at the end of their driveways." I let out a dramatic sigh.

Asher's face softened for a moment before he quickly narrowed his eyes on me. "I know you think I live in this billionaire bubble and don't realize how everyone else gets by…" he grumbled. "But you don't fully agree with my reasoning behind a tall fence or wall. Technically, motion detectors similar to the ones installed in art museums would work even better if installed in the front yard." His lip ticked up, knowing we had an argument about the lasers a month prior.

“I already told you I’m not developing a laser system for the front yard.”

Asher ran his hands through his shaggy hair. "I just want everybody to be protected. If you knew the shit, I've seen in this world. People don't realize all the things that go down. How easy it is to get kidnapped, taken, or killed. A little extra security wouldn't hurt people."

Growing up in Overtown, a neighborhood in Miami, I experienced some of the shittiest things Miami had to offer firsthand. I was eight years old when I saw a person get killed in my parents' home. The drug dealer's brown eyes had haunted me for many nights as a kid. The teenager selling my dad drugs demanded my father pay, but he was short twenty dollars. So instead, my father killed him and took all the drugs he had.

The second time I saw someone killed, it was my mom. My father had found her sleeping with her boss.

I worried the third time would be my own death. My sophomore year of high school, rumors spread around the school that I was bi-sexual. It was only a matter of time before the information reached my father. Even if I told him I was straight, I wouldn’t survive his questioning. My only option was to run.

My best friend Bridget and her mother let me live with them. The area of Miami they lived in wasn’t much better than Overtown, but the love inside the small apartment made life much easier. Bridget, our friend Sophie, and I spent all our free time working on computers. The three of us had wanted to escape out of the slums.

Asher rested his hand on my arm. "Hey, I don't like that look."

"My mind wandered for a moment." I scrolled through Zayla’s email and her messages. “Her phone is a dead end."

“Maybe you can check the red light cameras down the street?”

“Sure. I’m going to check her laptop first though.”

I flipped open the MacBook on the counter and hit the power button. With a quick glance, I noticed there was a half-full water bottle right next to her computer.

From my satchel, I retrieved a small metallic kit that Kat had given me years ago for Christmas. Inside was a compact, fingerprint powder, and jelly tape. I unscrewed the cap on the powder and tapped some over the side of the bottle. The white dust clung to two perfect fingerprints. Carefully, I wrapped the tape around my index finger and pressed it against the same spot.

The tape warmed against my skin as ridges from the powder formed Zayla’s fingerprint. With one fluid motion, I tapped my index finger against the fingerprint reader on her MacBook.

Asher grunted next to me. "You know, you rave about being such a great hacker, but yet you're using Kat’s kit to get into the machine. Are you slipping?"

"Hacking would take me a lot longer. I will never admit it out loud, especially not to Kat, but sometimes she has faster solutions."

I paused as I brought up Zayla’s search history, only to find nothing new. Digging a little deeper, I uncovered a hidden program installed on her computer. Spytrap was the latest monitoring program being sold on the dark web. My heart raced as I quickly motioned for Asher to stay silent and backdoored into the software. The IP connection was still active. I anxiously navigated the software, finding out that the person had access to her camera and mic, but thankfully the flap for the webcam was closed. After a few keystrokes, I traced the IP address of the intruder. Now it was time to figure out who was behind this.

My fingers flew across the keyboard as I made a few tweaks to the system. With each click, I felt a rush of adrenaline as I hacked my way into the computer. The user had disabled the webcam, but I was able to turn it on when I made a registry change. The camera flickered on. The view before us caused my stomach to heave and a sick feeling spread throughout my body.

“Fuck,” Asher cursed.

“Is she alive?” My heart raced as I stared at Zayla's motionless form. She was strapped down to a medical table, the darkness of the room only further emphasizing her vulnerability. My gaze shifted to the figure standing next to her, his right hand gripping a glinting blade.

Seconds ticked by agonizingly slow as I tried to suppress my fear and focus on finding Zayla's exact location. When I read off the GPS coordinates, Asher typed them into his phone. We sprinted for the SUV, hoping that we would reach her before it was too late.

2

ZAYLA

The monotonous clackingof fingers typing on a computer keyboard filled the air with an incessant rhythm. I struggled to open my eyes. They felt like they were welded shut. Suddenly, the icy touch of metal hit my skin, and panic set in as I tried to move my arms, but they were restrained.

As my senses slowly returned, I felt sweat bead on my upper lip. The lone figure to my right sitting in a computer chair breathed heavily. I remained still, afraid to take a breath or let out a sound as I took in my surroundings. Only a faint glow from the row of monitors on the wall illuminated the room. Each one displayed a different home. The center monitor had a young couple hugging near an open front door, the farthest screen showed a little girl playing with a Barbie doll, and the one closest had a family seated around a dinner table.

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