Dirty Hacker: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Alpha Men Book Book 2)

by Tia Lewis

  I fell asleep with a million questions running through my mind, along with a million images of degradation and painful submission.

  I didn’t know at the time that I’d never hear from Preston again.

  Chapter 23

  It all started when I turned on the news the next morning.

  I’d woken up early, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. The night had been long, full of nightmares. I’d imagined myself in the place of some of the women I’d watched. With a knife to my throat while Preston watched.

  I felt grumpy and irritable when I walked downstairs in shorts and a T-shirt. I told myself I should go out for a run and keep up with my exercise regimen, but there was no way when I’d only gotten an hour or two of sleep the whole night.

  My mother was still home and my father left early for a consultation. “You’re up early this morning,” she said, bright and sunny.

  “Yeah. I didn’t sleep well. There was no point hanging around in bed.”

  “Do you feel all right?” She put a hand to my forehead in a typical mom move.

  “I don’t think I’m sick,” I said, “but I just don’t feel… well. You know?”

  “Sure. We all have days like that. Maybe you should rest today. Take a day on the couch, watch movies. You don’t have to work on your client’s websites or go anywhere, right? I know you’ve been working hard building websites, but you need to take care of yourself. I don’t want you starting school all burned out.”

  “You’re right,” I said, hardly hearing a word she said. It was exhausting, trying to pretend to play along. I wished I could share my fears and apprehensions and disappointments with her, but how did a person broach the subject? Hey, Mom. I went to a BDSM party last night, and my boyfriend wants me to do the things I saw there. It makes me sick to think about degrading myself that way, and I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t make a huge mistake this summer.

  I took a bowl of cereal to the living room sofa, turning on the TV before I sat down. It was already tuned to the morning news, and I didn’t bother looking for anything better to watch. It was a waste of time that early in the morning. While I ate, I half-listened to the stories the newscasters recited.

  Until a certain name caught my attention. My head snapped up at the mention of Bank of New York.

  “Officials have confirmed the presence of a partial fingerprint on the USB drive recovered at the scene of Tuesday night’s hacking.” A photo of an average looking flash drive appeared on the screen. “The drive, which was recovered in the stairwell of Bank of New York’s corporate headquarters, is said to contain files which have no bearing on the results of the hacking. As we reported yesterday, over ten million dollars was stolen in what officials have deemed one of the costliest hacks in recent memory, and the flash drive in question is the only piece of physical evidence recovered at the scene.”

  I was dimly aware of cold wetness on my feet. It was the milk from my cereal, which I’d dropped as I listened. I fumbled for the remote, rewinding to watch the story again. And again.

  Each time I watched, I only ended up more confused than I was the time before. They found a flash drive. My flash drive? There was no telling. In the stairwell. Had the rest of the team used the stairwell, or had it only been Preston and me?

  Did Preston drop the flash drive?

  I started shaking, arms wrapped around my midsection. I rocked back and forth, trying to soothe myself as the world crumbled around me. All I could remember was taking off my gloves. I took them off. And yes, I’d wiped things down.

  But not the drive.

  I ran to the kitchen in a blind panic, just barely making it to the sink before the little bit of cereal I’d eaten came up. I gagged for a long time after my stomach was empty, then rinsed my mouth once I was reasonably certain I’d stopped heaving.

  I couldn’t think straight over the screaming going on in my head. Everything was falling apart, spinning out of control around me. My fingerprints were probably on the drive. All the evidence they needed.

  Then again…

  I slid to the floor, my back to the cabinets beneath the sink. The floor was cold under my nearly bare legs. That was a good thing. I needed to think straight, and the cold helped keep me centered. It brought me back to reality.

  It was only a partial print, and as far as I knew, my fingerprints weren’t on file anywhere. Besides, the drive didn’t contain files pertinent to the hacking. So even if my fingerprints were on it, what could they prove? That I’d been there. That I’d stolen files. But nothing else. I hadn’t stolen money, for sure.

  “That’s stupid,” I whispered. I was splitting hairs. The authorities wouldn’t care if I didn’t take any actual money. I had broken in. I had hacked into the bank’s network and taken files from various terminals. I was guilty of a number of crimes. And they wouldn’t take pity on me because I was so young, or a girl, or just on my way to Harvard. They especially wouldn’t care that I’d been roped into the plan by an older man I was involved in a physical relationship with.

  Preston.

  He had to be losing his mind. I ran for my cell phone, legs shaking and almost giving way beneath me. I’d left it on the couch, right beside where I’d been sitting with my breakfast.

  My thumbs were poised over the keyboard, ready to start typing. What should I say? Should I ask if I was in trouble? If the drive in question was the one I’d used? If I should hide out?

  But I didn’t ask any of those things because another bit of the report floated to the top of my mind. As we reported yesterday.

  Yesterday.

  The story had been out since the day before.

  And he hadn’t said a word to me about it.

  I sank back against the cushions. Maybe Preston didn’t know. It was possible that the story had slipped through without him noticing. But no, that didn’t make sense. If I had a group of hackers working for me and I’d just stolen ten million dollars, I’d sure as hell be monitoring the news for any word of the crime. The flash drive had been on the news. The media knew about it.

  He had to know, too. A man like him? He had to be in control at all times. He would have monitored the hell out of the story.

  But he didn’t say a word. Instead, he’d taken me to a party and acted like nothing was wrong. Was he only trying to protect me? That had to be it. But that sort of protection didn’t help a person. I would rather know than walk around without a clue that the cops might be closing in on me.

  He’d always told me there was no chance of me being in any danger. Yet there I was, terrified.

  I ran upstairs, forgetting about the spill on the floor. It wasn’t important. What mattered was whether or not I was on the police radar. I sat at my computer and started scanning every story I could find. They were all very similar. Ten million dollars stolen. Nothing on the security footage—well, that was good. The night guard had no idea what could have happened. He’d done a floor-by-floor check twice during the night, and never saw an intruder.

  My eyes found a single detail repeated in every story. If it weren’t for the random USB drive found in the stairwell, authorities would have assumed it was an off-site job.

  I sat there, my mouth open as the clouds parted. An ugly picture started coming together, a picture I didn’t want to consider but couldn’t ignore.

  I started going through the entire night with fresh eyes.

  Preston lured me to the office building with the promise of a meeting of The Alliance. He hadn’t told me what I was really going there for until I was already there. He’d kept me off-balance by using the vibrator on me, betting I wouldn’t want to question him too much if we were having fun.

  I was the only one on that floor who hacked terminals. Preston kept himself away from the dirty work.

  He’d given me a too-large pair of leather gloves to wear, then had expected me to type while wearing those gloves. Who could expect a person to type accurately when their fingers didn’t make contact
with the keys because of gloves? Had he expected me to take them off at some point? Had he hoped I would make a mistake?

  Had he deliberately dropped the drive on the stairs? Preston, a man who never made a mistake. All he had to do was leave it in his pocket. But no. I hadn’t even seen what he did with it after I handed it to him since he’d pulled me in for a kiss. What had he done, anyway? In the end, he’d left it behind.

  The most terrible thing of all was the repeated report that the files I’d copied didn’t mean anything. They didn’t have any bearing on the hacking. They didn’t contain pertinent information of any kind. I’d been sitting there, hacking my little heart out, while the rest of the team had actually taken the money.

  And he’d known it. He had to know it. He’d probably already hacked into the bank’s system, located innocuous files and set me up to copy them. The important files were on the drives the rest of the team used.

  I wasn’t there to steal money.

  I was there…

  “I was there to take the fall,” I whispered. I didn’t even cry. There were no tears left in me. Instead, my heart hardened. The more I thought it over, the more it all made sense. I was never allowed to meet other members of the group. I wasn’t even allowed to see who else was at the scene of the crime.

  And I would have bet a million of the ten million I was supposed to have stolen that Preston’s name wasn’t really Preston. I was willing to bet he’d set me up from the very beginning, all with that single night in mind. The night he stole ten million and framed me for the crime, disappearing into smoke since I didn’t know his real name.

  I wasn’t ready or willing to go into the depth of what that meant. I couldn’t bring myself to consider the implications. My heart couldn’t handle it. Neither could my brain.

  I needed my brain for other things just then.

  I needed to figure out how to protect myself. And I would, even if it meant turning the spotlight back in Preston’s direction. First, I had to prove to myself what he’d done.

  I looked at my Macbook, my special iPhone sitting beside it on the desk. They were as good a place to start as any.

  Chapter 24

  Four hours later, it was all clear.

  The first thing I should’ve done after accepting the Macbook from Preston was a thorough system scan. It was Hacking 101, for God’s sake. But I hadn’t ever considered he’d hurt me. I couldn’t imagine him having an agenda aside from making sure I could work and communicate with him.

  After making sure the computer was mine and mine alone—no eyes were watching me, my firewall was thoroughly in place—I started sniffing around. When I found the secret folder sitting way down deep in the system, a folder I’d never noticed before and certainly hadn’t accessed, my stomach dropped. I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was right in front of me.

  And in that folder was a plethora of information. Floorplans of the office. A mile-long series of code which must have been used to disable the security feed and loop the same safe, boring footage over and over while we sneaked into the building.

  My eyes widened when I saw files including information on the accounts I’d first kept track of when my acceptance into The Alliance was finalized. I felt sick when I realized those were the very accounts the money was taken from. Accounts my computer had accessed time and again. I closed my eyes, a crushing weight spreading through my chest. No. I couldn’t let myself fall apart. I was already running out of time—the cops had a head start on me. It wouldn’t be long before computer forensics led to my front door and the loaded computer my so-called boyfriend had given me.

  Next was the cell phone. What did that have to do with it? I searched through the files there, then tapped into the hidden files behind the user interface. Sure enough—access codes for the terminals the group had hacked to steal the money, plus account numbers and dollar amounts. It was all right there. I was such a fool.

  I guessed Preston and his minions weren’t able to access the money off-site. I could do all the monitoring I wanted from my machine, but actually obtaining the money was a much more complicated process. A bank the size of the one we’d hacked had dozens of systems in place to prevent theft. Off-site, anyway. Once inside and at a registered terminal, all bets were off. Mr. Greedy had lost his patience and decided to take the fight to headquarters. All he’d needed was a patsy to pin it on, deflecting attention until he could get away with his money.

  I was sure that once I knew I was in the clear, I’d break down and sob for days, but right then wasn’t the time. What I needed to focus on was getting out of it. But how?

  The first thing I did was copy the phone’s files to my computer, then delete them from the phone. I would destroy the phone later, once I was sure my work was finished, and my connections to the group no longer existed. I didn’t want Preston hacking into the phone and realizing it no longer existed before I was ready to drop the net on him.

  After that, it was a matter of finding where the money had been deposited, taking it—because I’d be damned if I’d let any member of the group get away with the money when Preston went down for the crime—and leaving the files on Preston’s machine. But how would I get to his machine?

  I started going through our communications. We’d sent hundreds of emails over the summer, not just him but other team members. I never knew their real names, I was sure. Only aliases. They knew my name because I was too stupid to think three steps ahead and be healthfully distrusting of them. I was so eager for them to like me. I wanted to fit in. I would have told them anything they wanted to know if they would only work with me and let me be part of the façade they presented to the world.

  In reality, they were nothing better than a bunch of thieves. Remembering that about them helped me do what I needed to do.

  I found an email from Preston—a rare one since he so seldom had bothered to communicate that way with me. I used it as my starting place.

  After twenty minutes of digging around, I did what he’d originally done to me after I sent that first email. Had it really been only two months, maybe a little more? It seemed like a lifetime ago. I was so naïve then. Desperate to be understood. Desperate for excitement.

  Once his desktop was up on my screen, I froze. I didn’t know if he was around, on his machine, and I couldn’t run the risk of him seeing me working. I waited ten minutes while nothing happened—no movement, nothing. I had to take the chance. I couldn’t afford to wait a minute longer.

  Taking a deep breath, flexing my fingers to get them limbered up, I got started.

  First, I took over control of the machine. Preston wouldn’t be able to see me do it, thankfully, just like I couldn’t see when he did it to mine. I hadn’t known about him taking control until he’d started moving the cursor.

  I immediately accessed his root directory, finding the least frequently visited corners of his machine. I had to hide the information deep enough that he wouldn’t see it, but not so deep that a forensic team couldn’t find it. I moved the files to an otherwise unused folder in his system’s data drive, one which he hadn’t edited in a year—it was only a matter of a few keystrokes to change the date the folder was edited back to its original date. Even if he saw it, it would still look on the surface as though it hadn’t been edited since the last time he did it.

  The next step was accessing the money. It had taken two minutes to take control, locate a folder and move the files over. I was doing well.

  Next, I searched through his directory for the user log. I scanned the line items—pages of them—looking for actions taken the night of the hack and the morning after. It made the most sense to me. He’d had his team transfer the money to a series of offshore accounts which I would bet any money were in Preston’s real name. I wondered if he even intended for the rest of the group to take a cut.

  I copied the account numbers, stored there in the user log, and pasted them into a document on my machine. Then I made quick work of turning control back over
to him.

  The whole thing took less than five minutes.

  I waited another ten minutes to see if he’d move his mouse, anything to prove he was around and using his machine. I saw nothing. He was either away from it, or it was closed. Either way, it looked like I might have gotten away with it.

  I left him, then, and turned my attention to the accounts the money had been left in. I copied the account numbers and passwords by hand onto a piece of paper, then deleted the document.

  The accounts were all under the name Richard Wallace. Was that Preston’s real name, or just another alias? I didn’t have time to think about that just then. I needed proof of the existence of his accounts.

  I’d found that proof.

  How would I contact the authorities? It would be rather poetic if I used the skills Preston, or Richard, had taught me. Wouldn’t it?

  Within twenty minutes, it was all set up. I’d created an untraceable email account—if anybody tried to reply, they’d get nothing. They’d never be able to trace the IP address of the sender, either. Nothing. I’d be a ghost.

  I couldn’t send the email to the bank, since Preston might have surveillance set up on all of their email accounts to see if any pertinent information went back and forth. So I looked up the email address of the lead detective on the case—his name had been mentioned several times in various articles detailing the theft.

  What should I say?

  In the subject line, I typed Re: Bank of New York Hacking

  In the body of the email I left the bank name, account numbers, and passwords to each, then the name Richard Wallace. I sent it before I could think twice, then hoped I’d done enough to set things in motion.

  Just for shits and giggles, I decided to look up Richard Wallace. Who was he? Did he even exist? Was he really a billionaire?

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered. He was right there. Of course—he was indeed a “self-made” billionaire who owned a real estate company. Wallace Properties, to be exact, with offices in New York and Los Angeles. I was starting to think his hacking schemes was actually how he became a “self-made” billionaire after all.