Page 7 of Scarlett Thief (Criminal Underground 2)

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Hadrian

Bethesda, West Virginia

Present Day…

Istared at the screen as my fingers flew over the keyboard. Opening system backdoors was like scouring a hallway of locked doors. One would fly open, revealing secrets but not the ones I needed. I'd keep the key—after all, all information would be useful at some point—but I'd move along. There were secrets to be found and money to be made.

Today's target was a congressman. I shook my head as I considered the man on my screen. Politicians. Always so self-righteous and money obsessed. Believed that they were free to do whatever it took to run their campaigns. I grinned as I scanned the screen in front of me.And so very good for business,I thought.

Politicians were some of the worst humanity had to offer, falling hideously short of the high standard to which they were held. One might think that with all that attention, they’d try a bit harder to hide those dirty little secrets of theirs. Unluckily for the congressman, I was in the business of exposing those deviant desires of theirs. They were mortals and I was a motherfucking god. With the tap of the enter key, the door I'd been searching for was opened.

I laughed aloud and sat back in my chair as a picture popped up on the screen. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" I said with a slight shake of my head as I stared at the image.This one is definitely going to the Washington Sun, I thought. Hell, it was likely to make front page news when it broke.

The man was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. His cock and balls were on display and the rest of him was tied so tightly, the ropes binding him sunk past his fat rolls. He was red-faced and his body obviously taut with discomfort. Yet, at the same time there was an almost euphoric expression on his face. A petite woman stood over him, dressed in a leather bustier. Her tits were small but perky. She wasn’t much to look at, but that striking red hair of hers catapulted her into definite dominatrix fantasies. I’d met a few, but as she held a single white candle over the man's ass, letting the wax drip down into his crack, I had to wonder if she was truly a professional. After all, the strips against the man’s backside were pink, not red. If he were truly into the pain, they’d definitely be more prominent and easier to discern from the photograph.

This wasn’t the first image of its kind and it wouldn’t be the last. I didn’t see anything particularly wrong with a little bondage. No, I didn’t care about Congressman Carpenter’s deviant ways or sexual proclivities—but someone else did. Someone with very deep pockets who paid me to find this information. And the masses … oh, the masses would take one look at this and serve Congressman Carpenter up on a newspaper cartoon platter with big fat letters scrawled across his meaty backside, reading ‘pervert.’

I quickly saved the image file to my drive and then set up an encrypted email, letting my client know what I'd found. In twenty-four hours half a million dollars—more than triple my usual fee—would be transferred to an overseas bank account and my client would receive their reward. Once I was done, I sat back and stretched sore, aching muscles.

Hacking was like a good game of chess. There were so many strategies. Backdoors people unknowingly left open, unaware that some little sneaky pawn could creep in, kill their king, and take their queen. I shook my head as I glanced at the clock.How long have I been here? An hour? Two?Apparently much longer than that, I realized as light began to seep through my bedroom window. It was already morning.

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I climbed out of my computer chair and headed into the galley kitchen of my condo. It was small but efficient. I quickly scanned the monitors that tracked movement outside the surrounding areas. As much as I would’ve preferred to be in a cabin in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, my money was better spent on my equipment. Soon though—and with that added check of half a million dollars—I might just be able to make that move into the middle of the mountains. Somewhere secluded and safe. Off the grid.

My microwave beeped, letting me know dinner was ready. I popped open the front and the smell of Thai filtered out. I didn’t even wait to get back to my screens to start in on my meal. Slurping up several noodles with curry sauce, I ambled back over to my work station and frowned at the ding of my email notifications. I finished chewing and set my bowl down next to the mouse before my back hit the chair and my fingers flew across the keyboard.

“What the fuck?” I muttered a few seconds later as one of my encrypted emails dinged again. Then another and another until all of them were going off.

I had a lot of fucking email addresses. Throwaway addresses. Professional ones. Fake ones that were meant to look like company contacts. All of them went off, one after another. Someone was trying to get my attention. Well, the motherfucker had it.

I shut down my system and rebooted everything. The second my screens came back to life, a final email popped up, front and center. Narrowing my eyes on the square box, I rolled my chair over to one side and started the process of checking it. Caution was the key to life and all that shit. Once my system cleared the email to let me know there was no tracking encryption within it, I went ahead and clicked to open it.

Dear Diablo,

You are cordially invited to dinner at the Harlington Estate to discuss a sensitive issue. It is our understanding that you do not usually make such house calls. It is also our understanding that you would prefer to remain anonymous. That is something we can understand. If, however, you decide to ignore this message, we will be forced to reveal not only your location to all of the men and women you’ve previously gathered and traded information on, but to also inform the FBI of your brokering business. Please understand, it is imperative that you attend. The time and date of this meeting are below as well as the address.

It will be a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.

With regards,

Mr. Black

Not just what the fuck—but what theactualfucking fuck? Was an old friend playing a prank on me? No. None of my acquaintances would’ve pulled something like that. They knew as well as I did the seriousness of this kind of threat. I sat forward. This required some big guns.

Within seconds, I traced the email messages—all one hundred and eight of them. Someone had done their research. However, each one came up with nothing. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who had come to the table prepared. The longer I searched, trying to gain access to whoever this Mr. Black was, the more infuriating it became. It was clear that the name was merely an alias. I knew it from the times I’d worked for a few international intelligence agencies.

After an hour, I had to grit my teeth and begrudgingly admit that whoever this guy was, he was fucking good. Or he had hired someone that was. Every single email came back from an untraceable source. Throwaway emails made, used once, and never touched again. Always accessed from somewhere public—coffee shops, libraries, even fucking schools. There was no one I’d met in my recent yearsthisgood, at least not one who hadn’t been making waves in the criminal underground. If you were able to pull shit like this off, people knew your name … your criminal name, anyway. So whoever this was, it was either someone new or a group of hackers. The latter was hard to believe since I knew everyone else in the game, and none of them were able to pull this shit off without some kind of digital signature. Cocky and proud of their work, the other hackers couldn’t help but leave little clues.

I glared at the black and white screen, reading and rereading the email. It appeared that if I wanted answers, I was going to have to meet this ‘Mr. Black’ in person. I hated ‘in person’ meetings. Reaching beneath the desk, I unlocked a drawer and slid it out, slipping my hand inside to retrieve the gun I kept there. I checked the clip.

My gaze strayed back to the screen. “Alright, Mr. Black,” I said to myself, “let’s fucking play.”

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