Page 2 of Hacked For Love
Compassion is a heavy burden—butI would rather bear it than be a complete piece of shit likeLink.
Half an hour after I put in the huge order, I go to the window to wait and listen. Eventually, I hear surprised exclamations, and the crying dries up. Meanwhile, every light in the building is now on. A peek down the alley shows at least two delivery cars parked at itsmouth.
The misery is gone, replaced by a contented silence as little tummies are filled. For a while after that, even in the middle of this bleak-ass winter, I actually feel allright.
It’s one of the rules I live by. If you want the world to be a better place, go out and do something about it. If the law won’t let you, figure out a way. Break the law—rob from the rich, save a life. Savefifty.
Whenever I help someone using money some rich guy won’t miss, I know I’m on the right track, because afterward, I can sleep. In the morning, the world seems less crappy for a while, and I can live with myself better,too.
Money alone could never do that for me. My parents understood that, and so doI.
The loneliness? Well, that’s another thing. I’ve spent a lot of time in isolation, even after I was off the streets. There’s something about being a street kid that makes it hard to connect with people again when the opportunity comesback.
That’s me, now. I watch over people. I don’t make friends withthem.
I hear talking and laughter over across the alley now. Someone’s faintly playing classic rock. A kidgiggles.
I let out a soft sigh of relief and sit back in my desk chair, which creaks a little stiffly. I still don’t feel the least bit sleepy, and I find my eyes drifting over to a folder at the top of my computerdesktop.
I’ve still got that cold feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me I’m still a little upset, and that even if I could sleep, I won’t rest. I’ll spend the rest of the night reliving the winter I spent on the streets of Baltimore with the organ music from my parents’ double funeral still echoing in myhead.
The folder is labeled “A Fistful of Bitcoin,” referencing one of my favorite movies, and the currency involved in the heist. The plan within will be the biggest, most daring, and most life-saving operation that I have ever come up with…if I actually go through withit.
I have a database of twenty thousand people in the greater Seattle area whose lives could be completely turned around with a windfall of just fifty thousand dollars. Medical bills, college debt, back mortgages, credit cards, fines, homelessness—each one of them is struggling with something. I can help them all—as long as I’m willing to risk making some truly dangerousenemies.
If I go through with it, it will all start with a massive Bitcoin heist against three very deserving targets. Bitcoin. I chose this because it’s the currency I’ve started doing all my transactions with, so I know the ins and outs of the system—and because most of my targets do not even know if they own a lot ofit.
As for the one target who does know…his security is good, but it’s not as good as he thinks itis.
There are eight “traditional” billionaires in the greater Seattle area: famous, well-known captains of industry. There are three Bitcoin billionaires who made their fortunes recently by investing in Bitcoin cryptocurrency right before its enormous rise in value. Two of these men could probably buy up most of the rest, but only because they each run a piece of the localunderworld.
Every last one of them—like my uncle, like Link, like so many others—is an unethical, lying, cash-grubbing piece of work. Between them, they have bought their way out of so many criminal charges and massive fines that I hate thinking about it. Even Drake Steele, one of the Bitcoin billionaires, and a guy heavily into funding local small businesses, has a history of doing large scale money laundering for a certainsomeonestarting a decadeback.
Drake is the second target I picked for my heist. He is one of three men presumed to be criminal, each likely to have a territorial beef with the others, and each likely to be led to suspect one another for the cryptocurrency theft I’m making off with. While they’re bickering, I can make sure their money gets quietly sent where it will do the most good. The whole plan relies on them blaming each other for thetheft.
Each one has decent security on their Bitcoin wallets and other online repositories. Steele’s security has given me some problems, but I’ve dipped into them for unnoticeable amounts multiple times. This is just a bigger bite—and just like the Man with No Name, I’ll leave the bad guys blaming each other for the trouble I cause. Maybe they’ll even kill each otheroff.
Cyber hacks like this are my specialty: the slow, subtle drain of resources; the big, showy hit to the wallet that someone else gets blamed for. I could be a billionaire myself by now, if I was selfish enough to keep thatmoney.
But that’s not me.My wealth redistribution is a straight up public service—and often in amounts that billionaires would still considernegligible.
They’re not my only targets, either. Plenty of embezzlers have found their stolen funds vanishing out from under them, while a local grandma gets a newroof.
I sigh through my nose and open the dossier on Steele. Drake Steele, youngest of the three by decades, has a mysterious background and no known relatives. He prefers to fund incubators instead of pay taxes—which is a lot better than not paying atall.
Also, hot. Disgustingly, distractinglyhot.
I switch to his photo folder and drink in his imagesagain. This is the man I’m contemplating relieving of fifty thousand Bitcoin—which translates to hundreds of millions ofdollars.
I don’t know anything about intimacy with men, but I know to be wary of ones that I can’t look away from. I could stare at Drake Steele for minutes at a stretch as I wonder what he looks like under that nice suit—just from a picture. That kind of magnetism alarmsme.
I have to make sure that we never actuallymeet.
Still, looking at a man like that makes me want to dream a little. Tall and muscular, with the sharp, noble features of a Roman statue, pale skin, wavy mahogany-colored hair that reaches his jawline, and ice-gray eyes.What awaste.
I catch myself yawning, and I sigh in relief, getting up from my desk and stretching. Maybe I’m relaxed enough now from the night’s successes to get an actual napin.
I prefer to sleep through sunrise. There’s something uniquely depressing about facing the dawn alone, even if I have done it since I wasten.
