by Crimson Syn
“I kept debating whether or not to come over tonight. But I just can’t keep myself away from you, baby. You mean too much to me.”
I hummed, my eyes slowly closing as the rumble of his voice started to lull me to sleep.
“I wanted to go slow with you, but when I saw you…you make me lose my senses, baby girl.”
“Mmhmm,” I hummed again, barely keeping my eyelids open.
“Are you falling asleep on me?” He chuckled lightly and I swept my leg up around his. “It’s okay, baby girl. Sleep. I’ll always watch over you.
I sighed, finding peace in his arms. My Daddy was here. He was mine. And there was no doubt that I belonged to him.
10
Drake
I stared at Maxwell Cunningham’s smug face from across the conference room table. Lucian was seated at the head acting as a mediator for us.
Maxwell leaned back in his chair, propping one leg up on a knee and crossing his arms over his chest. The guy was built like a truck and he was also the largest douchebag I’d ever met. We had never been good company, ever since we first introduced. He was a Grade A hothead, and I didn’t fall far behind. Putting us in a room together, could be explosive. Nonetheless, he was the only hothead I could trust at the moment.
“So, you couldn’t figure it out and they had to call the experts.”
I clenched my jaw and stared at my hands, tightly folded in front of me. “Don’t get all smug just because we’re asking for your help. Besides, this is Lucian’s decision not mine.”
“And here I thought we were going to hold hands and catch up like old mates.”
His deep British accent, and the way he sounded out each fucking word he spoke, grated on my nerves. Not because I hated his accent, I just abhorred his arrogant face.
“I’m here to work Maxwell, not listen to stupid sarcastic remarks.”
“See, now why do you have to go and ruin all the fun, Archer?”
“That’s enough!”
We both looked up at Lucian who looked like he was going to burst from the anger. “I called you here because we need to figure this shit out. Now put those thick skulls together and come up with something. I’m giving you today! So, get to work. And get your damn feet off my table Cunningham!”
He swiped at his feet, knocking them to the ground in one angry swoop. “This is not a playing matter.”
He pointed at both of us and then sat back down. “Proceed.”
Maxwell looked at me and gestured at the files. “What are we looking at here?”
I gave him a quick rundown at what was going on. I hated it, but Lucian forced me to give him the information on Cassandra. I told him she was an employee at Ravenhead, but Lucian had pushed me to divulge more info on her. Information I didn’t want to give.
“You realize you let your personal life interfere with your job?” Maxwell shook his head.
I glared at him, clenching my jaw and keeping myself from slashing out. “Just keep to the facts, Cunningham.”
He sighed and flipped the files around to face him. “I don’t understand all this mumbo jumbo. This is fucking hieroglyphics to me. Tell me about hacking. There’s something you’re not seeing Archer, and I need to see a bigger picture here.”
“I’ve looked at all the calculations, all the algorithms, it all points to him. But there’s something else going on. Something I can’t pinpoint.”
“This is a cat and mouse game. Where’s the fucking mouse. Think tactical, not numeral.”
I stared up at him and realized he was right. I was so focused on searching for his name, that I never even thought of how he was able to infiltrate the system in the first place. It wasn’t about chasing him down, it was about setting the trap.
“The wheels are turning, Archer, I can fucking see them. You’ve got to think outside the box. This fucker was in here wasn’t he?”
I nodded. “In order for him to be able to get into our IT systems, he’d need access into our private network.”
Lucian and Maxwell both stared at me, neither comprehending.
“Okay look, think of a hacking job as a bank robbery. There’s three phases to it. There’s the hack, which happens outside from another server which can be tracked as long as it happens live. Then there’s the physical hacking, the one that happens from the inside. And then there’s the hack that happens to the area which we have no control over. That’s street lights going haywire, grids going offline, etc. It’s the diversion which occurs outside of the frame, and then there’s the man with the plan. The one who physically enters the Lion’s den and scopes out the place. That’s who we want. This kid is smart, but no one is perfect, he’s leaving crumbs behind. He likes to play games. Maxwell is right. It’s a cat and mouse game, we just need to trap the mouse.”
Lucian stood up and walked over to the floor to ceiling windows. “When you say hacking the Intranet, you mean it had to be an inside job?”
“In order to get into Ravenhead’s inner network, yeah, it means someone has to come in and hack that server physically.”
Maxwell clapped his hands together. “Which means we got him on feed!”
I’d spent a small fortune of Lucian’s money, but I’d made sure there were no blind spots left when it came to the surveillance of the building. I had cameras that couldn’t be spotted by the naked eye and those were on different servers. Hidden servers.
System Failure was good, but he would never be able to hack both systems at the same time, unless he had help. But if they were focused on one, then all I could was hope that they hadn’t paid any mind to the other.
“If we’re lucky, and he didn’t dig deep enough to find the second server, then there’s a chance we caught him. But he’s smart, we’d have to look at hours of feed before the breaches occurred. This could take days.”
Lucian looked over at me and nodded. “Last chance. Get your team on it. If this doesn’t work then you have my permission to contact the FBI.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I’ll help,” Maxwell stated looking up at Lucian and then at me. “Hey, can’t let you get all the credit, now can I?”
I grimaced. “Just don’t get in my way.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he shook his head in mock shock.
It had been days since I’d last seen Cassandra. Her sweet face would pop up in my head every once in a while. I was yearning for her touch, for her sweet smell of citruses to coat my body. She’d been so perfect the other night, looking so fucking sexy I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I brushed a hand down my face, rubbing it along my untrimmed beard. It was nearing eight in the evening.
I needed a break. Last night I had slept on the couch in my office, using the downstairs gym to shower. I’d gone on only coffee, red bull, and some vending machine pop tarts all day. I stared up at the screens in my office. Over twenty of them. I wasn’t alone in this, Maxwell was seated right next to me, snoring away. I stretched my back, pulling my arms up over my head. I had my whole team looking at this feed yet no one had come up with anything.
Maxwell stirred and shot up in his chair. He gripped the chair before he fell out of it.
“What the fuck, man?”
“What time is it?” He asked, searching for his phone. I picked it up and threw it at him.
“You finish this shit up, I’m heading home.”
“You can’t just leave me with this!”
“You’ve been sleeping for the last three hours. Fini…”
The words died on my lips as movement caught my eye. I pointed at the screen. “Rewind that!”
“Which one?”
“Camera four. Rewind it. Now!”
“Hold on,” he snapped at me. I was being pushy but I needed to see the frame again.
Sure enough, there were seconds where the feed would get interrupted. He was smart, covering his tracks. The feed would go out for no more than a minute or two and restart as if nothing. It was either a glitch in the system, or it
was looping, hiding something in the recording.
I had secured my laptop and transferred most of the confidential files to the second server. I punched in the passwords and the hidden feed appeared on my screen. I searched for camera four A and B. Sure enough, the feed was intact, but the man in the feed was not.
“We found you fucker!” Maxwell stated behind me.
“He must have spent hours planning this.” The surveillance feed of the server room was empty in the regular feed, but when you looked at the other cameras, a man was hunkered over the server.
“That’s fucking creepy, mate. He’s like a fucking ghost.”
“What date is on that feed?”
“Last Wednesday, midnight.”
“And we were breached Saturday morning.”
Maxwell nodded. “Three AM.”
“Look back three months ago, all cameras in the surveillance rooms.”
We spent the next three hours deciphering times and dates. The man showed up several times, a couple days before the breaches occurred. There was only one way he could have done this. Ravenhead was a huge corporation, it would be easy to get lost among the thousand plus employees that came in and out of those revolving doors on a daily basis. To come up to the offices you needed to have clearance. Employees were the only ones given specific clearances. Some didn’t even have access to certain floors and areas.
My mind started recalculating and retracing his steps. “He would have had to get into the company somehow and then swipe access cards, duplicate them in order to be able to reach the areas he needed.”
“We’d have to look at employee files for the last six months.”
“Further than that. A year. Fuckers like this plan ahead. And this isn’t just a normal hack. I keep getting this feeling that we’re not seeing the bigger picture here.”
“What are you thinking, Archer?”
“I’m thinking Lee was right. I’m thinking this is a diversion from something bigger.”
“Darknet black market bigger?”
I nodded. “A while back I helped put down a cybercrime organization called Luminary. Fuckers exported drugs through an internet website. Cocaine, hallucinogens, the heavy shit. When we finally brought them down there was a phrase that kept popping up on our systems.”
“What was that?”
“Catchfire.”
“And what the hell does that mean?”
“I’m not sure, but it was code for something. Something major.”
“And you think this is, Catchfire.”
“I think that it wouldn’t hurt for us to look into it. Luminary was big, it could easily be a hydra.”
“A hydra?” He smirked, “You, geeks are definitely into some sick shit.”
“Don’t be an idiot. A hydra is a type of cybercrime ring. If you cut off its head, a bigger, nastier one grows in its place.”
I looked up at the screen and frowned. “If they’re looking for weapons, why not start with Ravenhead Corporation.”
“I don’t know, mate. It all sounds a little too far-fetched for my taste. But I’ll give you that. It’s definitely something to look into. I’ve got men, good men we can trust. Outside the governments, the industries. They could take a look for us.”
“They need to be infiltrated into the black-market sources.”
Maxwell nodded. “My men are everywhere. We’ll figure this out.”
I stared up at the screen, my hands fisting at my side. “I’m gonna find you, fucker,” I uttered beneath my breath.
11
Cassandra
The smell of rich coffee permeated the apartment making me stir awake. I smiled, stretching my sore muscles and sliding my naked body against the cool Egyptian cotton sheets. I stared up at the ceiling remembering the events of the night before. He’d been a generous a lover, unselfish, he’d made sure I was taken care of every single time he took me, which must have been at least three or four times. Then again, I lost count at how many orgasms he’d managed to give me. I giggled and turned over hugging a pillow.
“What are you laughing about?”
“Oh!” I stared over at him standing in the doorway in just his black briefs. He held a coffee cup in his hand and slowly approached the bed. He crouched down by my side. His head hovering over mine as I pressed my head into the pillow.
“Good morning,” he whispered kissing my forehead.
I giggled and pulled his face down, wanting the feel of his lips on me again. I moaned as his tongue drove into my mouth, lingering on my tongue and then pulled back. He tasted of coffee and sin and I wanted more of that taste. I grabbed him again and he chuckled against my lips, but gave me what I wanted.
“I’m going to spill your coffee,” he mumbled against my lips.
I reached out and grabbed the hot mug, taking a sip of the rich nutty taste and sighing. “Wow, this is good coffee.”
He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
I took another sip and set the mug down on the nightstand. I reached out and dragged him back into the bed. He plopped down on his back as I lay kisses on his chest.
“You know, eventually I’m going to have to go to work.”
“No, you don’t,” I muttered licking along the v-shaped dips at the waist of his briefs. I looked up at him as I slowly dragged them down.
“Now don’t you start something if you aren’t willing to finish it,” he groaned as I took him into my mouth.
His cock was already semi-hard and as I trailed my tongue on it, it throbbed and grew harder still. I looked up at him, his eyes closed, his body flexing as I pleasured him. His hand came up to my hair and he tugged on it, sliding himself out of my mouth. He leaned over, dragging me up and kissing me.
“Fuck yourself on me, Cassandra. I want to watch as you use my cock.”
I moaned as my hips dipped and I took him inside of me. He felt amazingly thick in this position and my hips started to move over him on their own volition. My arms went back, my hands perched on his knees as I found my rhythm. The feel of him was exquisite as I slid him in and out of me. He raised his knees and I fell forward onto his chest. He held me there, gripping my waist and thrusting up into me.
I whimpered and squealed as he fucked me in hard, quick strokes that had me panting in need. He held me close as he had his way with me and I squirmed in his embrace trying to move my body to meet his thrusts.
“You like the feel of my cock inside you, baby girl? You know you do. Now come undone for me.”
I parted my lips in a silent rip as his words tore through me and a tidal wave of pleasure shook me to the core. I came hard as he continued to give me those quick sharp strokes, driving me from one orgasm to the next in swift waves of pleasure.
“Fuck,” I breathed as I clutched his arms, my breasts pressed to his chest as he slowed his pace, his cock still thick and throbbing inside of me.
He cupped my cheeks and stared into my eyes. “Could you ever love me?”
His question caught me off guard. And his hips moving against me, coupled with the huge emotional roller coaster I was being driven into, the answer slipped from my tongue easily.
“God, yes!”
He groaned and held me still as he exploded inside of me. My name on his lips as he came. I watched in awe as this powerful man let go for me. His moans echoing in the room while he gripped my hips and kissed my chest.
I ran my fingers through his hair as he cradled me, and I knew I had spoken the truth. I could easily love him. So easily.
His eyes finally met mine. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered and stroked his cheek.
“You’ve got that look in your eye. The one that tells me you have doubts.”
I shrugged. “Don’t you?”
He shook his head. “None. I know what I want. I’m sure of it. Of us.”
I smiled down at him and kissed him softly. “Just be careful with me ok? I break easily.”
“How easily?”<
br />
“Let’s just say that when I love, I give everything.”
He flipped me over onto my back and slid me toward him. Gazing down at me, he smiled. “Well, that makes two of us.”
I stroked his beard. “You haven’t slept.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You need to rest. What’s going on? Why are you working so hard?”
He leaned back into the pillows and I leaned on his chest, stroking his well-defined pecs.
“I need to tell you something. Something important.”
“Oh?”
“But I need you to promise that you’ll remain calm. And I want you to know I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”
“How is that scaring you? I haven’t said anything yet.”
“When someone starts out that I should remain calm, it usually means what I’m about to receive is bad news.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that could possibly be very true.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
“You know there’s been breaches to the Security of the company.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a hacker, fucking around in our files. But he’s threatened me. Threatened us.”
“What?”
“He hacked my computer at work. The one I talked to you on. The one I recorded you on.”
“What?” I whispered, starting to feel a bit uneasy.
“He’s blackmailing with that video of you, baby girl. Not just the video, he’s threatened to expose it and he has access to your personal information.”
“Oh, my God.”
“He’s also threatened to ruin you. Identity theft would be easy for him, but it can be worse than that. He can do worse things.”
“Oh, my God!” I sat up, dragging the sheets with me.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure,” I shook my head and made my way to the bathroom. He was right behind me and as he tugged on the sheet I let it drop and ran in, slamming the door behind me.