It didn’t hurt, not the way he thought of pain. It made him feel alive.
Slowly, the hacker smiled.
So, the game would have a level he hadn’t originally planned. That was fine. He was more than up for the challenge. He would still win, of course. That had never been in question.
He just had to think on his feet and make sure that the next stage was adapted to take the new development into consideration. There were, to be honest, a few intriguing aspects that interested him. He was always willing to learn. That was what made him the best.
He was the best.
That, too, had never been in question.
Absently, he grabbed a tissue and mopped up the drops of blood, still fascinated by how he had felt almost no pain.
He needed to get a new mouse. He only had two left.
With that eerie smile still on his face, he settled down to plan his next step. Harrison Bloom would not know what had hit him.
This was, he thought, unhealthy glee bubbling up inside him, going to be fun. So much fun.
There was nobody to hear the cackling, wheezing laughter. Maybe if there had been, it wouldn’t have been too late for help.
“What? You did what?”
Leigh sighed and rolled her eyes at Harrison, making no effort to hide her annoyance. She’d decided that telling him that over dinner, after they’d both had a couple of glasses of wine – because they were, for some reason, out of beer and they had wine – would be a better idea. Apparently, it wasn’t going to work so well.
At least they had really nice pasta salad and shrimp, thought Leigh, comforting herself. Besides, the terrace was lovely that time of the year, and her flowers were blooming, despite the fact that she hadn’t been spending nearly as much time on her terrace garden as she should have. Or she would have liked.
With everything that was going on, she didn’t expect that to change for a while yet, because whether Harrison liked it or not, they were in it together. It was just a matter of whether she was along for the ride or if he’d let her take care of the map, at the very least.
Since Leigh had already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to be a passive passenger in anything to do with their life, the choice was already made. She just had to bring Harrison around to it.
So she took a slow and deliberate sip of her wine before responding.
“Will you please calm down, Harrison? It obviously worked.”
“I thought I had the hacker!”
Leigh shrugged.
“Well, you almost had a hacker, I guess that counts for something?”
Harrison frowned down at his wife, who was very obviously not intimidated at all. Maybe there was something to be said for marrying a submissive woman who vowed to obey you.
She took another nonchalant sip of wine and had a bite of the pasta salad, which was excellent. Maybe there was something about food and sex that was softening him up.
If that had been her plan, well…
He had married a very smart and very perceptive woman.
“Leigh…”
“Remember what we talked about? How we’re a team? A partnership? How what happens to one of us also happens to the other? No isolation from each other?”
Maybe there was something to be said for marrying a strong, opinionated, independent woman who didn’t listen to him, too, because she had a point. And yet…
“You shouldn’t have done it without telling me. I could’ve infected that boy’s system. From what you say, it doesn’t sound like he can afford something like that.”
Leigh shrugged.
“I would’ve tapped you for replacements if you had, but it didn’t come to it, so no harm done, right?”
“It was pretty impressive. He’s good. And fast, he’s really fast.”
Leigh grinned.
“I know. Well, I assume he is, because you’re apparently the best. The kid has a serious case of hero worship going on with you, Harrison. Like, he lights up when I talk about him. He’d probably listen for hours if I told him what you’d had for breakfast over the last three months. Might take notes, too.”
Harrison was, despite the annoyance, amused enough to chuckle. He relaxed enough to take another bite, and sipped his wine. He knew that Leigh had made up her mind. There was no point trying to change it.
“I used to be the best. I’m not so sure anymore. This hacker is becoming a bit of an annoyance. I… Well, if we’re going to be a team about this, I guess I should tell you that I did some checking and found that this started a while back. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could be careful. I found a few more traps. I’m going to have to get my coders to be careful, too. Maybe suspend work on that game, it’s bound to trigger something. I don’t understand this, though, honestly. If you really wanted to sabotage a company like mine, you should ideally leak stuff – especially to competitors. That hasn’t happened, at all. We have open source developing going on, too. The non-profit wing hasn’t been affected at all. I’m honestly not sure of what’s going on at all.”
Leigh was honestly surprised by how he had come around to her point of view so quickly. She had expected more of a fight.
It was a little suspicious.
“Don’t look like that,” drawled Harrison, with that smirk back in place. “I know I’m fighting a losing battle here. There are enough battles to fight without picking one with you. Besides, if you decide to take matters into your own hands like that again, I’d rather know.”
“I guess it makes sense when you put it like that, but you don’t always do the sensible thing.”
“I’m making an exception. Your hacker is good. I’d have expected anybody who didn’t know the system to get caught at the fourth firewall even if they were very good. To get as far as the fifth one – he’s very good. Where does he work?”
Leigh smiled quickly.
“He doesn’t work as a coder. Doesn’t have the qualifications, apparently.”
Harrison frowned.
“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, not in this day and age. Has he tried?”
“You know, he’d be thrilled if I could manage a meeting with you. Do you think you could take the time to do that? He’d love to meet you. And he’d love to help you, too. He’s already proven himself, I think.”
Harrison shook his head firmly.
“I am sure he’s a very enterprising and intelligent young man, and I’d be glad to meet him, but after all of this is over. I don’t want an outside involved in this.”
Leigh could hardly believe her ears. She’d thought that they’d skipped that fight. Apparently not – no wonder it had seemed too easy earlier.
“So you’d rather stay here and take all of this on yourself, driving yourself mad with worry, than take the help that’s freely offered? Harrison, why are you such an idiot?”
Leigh hadn’t planned to make it sound quite so harsh, but the words were out before she could stop them.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it the way it came out. Seriously.”
She touched his hand, squeezing it lightly, to show that she meant it.
“Leigh, I don’t want you involved like that. I don’t want anybody else involved like that. I can handle it.”
Leigh raked her fingers through her hair, trying to hide her frustration.
“It’s not a matter of whether you can handle it, Harrison. It’s a matter of why you don’t have to. Haven’t you given me lectures about using all resources and all that? Then why in holy hell are you being stubborn about using a perfectly good resource? He’s already proven that he’d be useful! He almost got through your shored up security. Isn’t that the kind of person you should be glad to have working for you, instead of against you?”
“Leigh, he’s a criminal! Well, he would’ve been a criminal if he hadn’t had you getting him out. I don’t think giving a criminal - all right, a potential criminal – access to my system is the way to go!”
Leigh’s eyes
widened.
“Wow, you have a lot of faith in my judgment, don’t you? You think I’d be so easily fooled. You should know, then, that he’s the reason you’re out right now. He was indulging his curiosity when he saw your signature, or so he called it. You weren’t charged because Darius used some program of his to wipe the traces you left behind. The holes are still there, but the fingerprints are gone. At least, that’s how he put it.”
Harrison frowned.
“Darius? What’s his handle?”
Leigh shook her head.
“I have no idea. He said something about creating a real identity for a virtual one.”
Harrison looked impressed. Leigh decided there was nothing wrong with taking some personal pride in Darius’s accomplishments.
“Not a lot of people can do that and sustain it without getting caught.”
“He’s apparently very good. According to you. Look, why don’t you meet him, and see how it works out? Just meet him. He’d be thrilled. Maybe you could help him some other way if you don’t want him to help you.”
Harrison finally nodded, though she knew that he’d done so reluctantly.
“Great! That’s excellent. Wonderful.”
Harrison smiled.
“You really wanted this.”
“I think it will help. I really want this to be sorted out. I don’t like that there’s somebody who wants to hurt you, Harrison. Or hurt your business. It’s almost the same thing, isn’t it? You’ve put so much of yourself into it. If they attack it, they attack you. If they attack you, they attack me.”
And wasn’t that the pure, unadulterated truth? Leigh wanted to protect Harrison just as much as he needed to protect her.
“How’s Roger taking all of this? You must’ve been spending some time on this when he needs you at work. And how’s Mia?”
Leigh smiled.
“Oh, Roger is managing, because I managed to find him an intern. He is excellent – he’s going to have a great future as a paralegal, unless he decides to become a lawyer, too. He has this eye for precedents that makes Roger scream in gratitude. He’s doing a bit of the work that I was, and we needed that, anyway. It’s not like I could do everything and take on cases. Besides, we know you’re good for the money.”
Harrison snorted, nearly sending pasta down the wrong way. Leigh thumped him on the back, maybe a bit more vigorously than she needed to.
“Yes, I guess I am. Which reminds me, Leigh, you made no changes to the pre-nup.”
Leigh shrugged.
“Why would I? I’m a lawyer, I understand the necessity of a pre-nup for your company. There are a lot of people who depend on you. They need to be sure that I’m not going to take half of it. But I’m also your wife. I know that the pre-nup is and will always be just a formality. Anyway, Roger insisted on going through it. Called it the most generous pre-nup he had ever seen. I signed it and sent it to Anna.”
“I know. Anna took care of it. She just sent me the details today.”
Leigh nodded and leaned closer to him.
“It’s official, Harrison. We are intertwined in every way. They go after your business, they go after me. It’s the same thing. Nobody is going to hurt you.”
Put that way, Harrison couldn’t really find a way to refute it. Leigh, as usual, seemed to be quite right.
“Wow, I can’t believe this. This is some setup you’ve got here, Mr. Bloom.”
“Call me Harrison. I’m glad you’re impressed, Darius. I went back and checked my system and could find no trace of your mopper.”
Leigh was impressed that Harrison managed to say that with a straight face.
“That’s the point. You can have a look at it. I brought most of my stuff. Can I set up?”
Harrison gestured expansively to indicate the study, and Darius got busy.
“While he does that, Harrison, I’ve got some stuff over here, too. Here are the details you gave me about everything. I’ve put a timeline together, and put together a list of the specific parts that were hit. First of all, it looks like your new game is where the biggest hits have come. That’s the really complicated one that you’ve been threatening to teach me.”
Harrison nodded, amused by his irreverent wife, as usual.
“It is. So what have you got here?”
“I have a chart.”
Harrison’s grin widened.
“Of course you have a chart.”
“Don’t mock me, charts are helpful and I’m here to help. Now, look what I’ve done.”
Harrison frowned as he glanced at the huge sheet of paper she unrolled and stuck up on the wall. It took a stern glance for him to help, as required.
He had been half expecting cartoons. But he pursed his lips when he saw that she had definitely taken it seriously. There was a timeline, charts, and a list of the people who had worked across those projects – Anna had obviously been busy – as well as a list of his competitors, in order of animosity.
“We have to start somewhere. Now, I know you think that this is a hacker, but have you considered that it might be an inside job?”
Harrison shook his head firmly.
“I considered and dismissed it immediately. It cannot be an inside job, because every employee, especially on these teams, has been vetted by me or Anna. We interview them ourselves. We check their backgrounds. Besides, they have no motive. If we go down, they go down.”
“What about industrial espionage?”
Harrison’s grin was wide.
“That’s elaborate. It would be possible, too, but the whole point of industrial espionage is to get secrets without revealing themselves.”
“Sabotage?”
“A competitor sabotaging me – that’s my bet.”
Leigh nodded, warming to it.
“You acquired a few startups. Not all of them were happy with the way you did it. And you cut GameTech’s profit margins substantially. There was talk of unethical business practices from them last year. Nothing came of it, but…”
Harrison nodded.
“I would believe it of them. I’d expect it from them, too. But the thing is… If they had a coder good enough to do this, I would know about it. Everybody in the business would know about it, and there would be a bidding war for him. I know their coders’ work. This doesn’t feel like them at all.”
“It doesn’t,” piped up Darius.
“See, your protégé knows.”
“All right, though I still think we shouldn’t dismiss them. We should take a look at their release schedule and see if they changed anything. If they did, we should consider the possibility that you might be wrong about that.”
“No, it’s definitely not anybody I’ve seen before, Leigh.”
Leigh rolled her eyes at both the men, young and old, who obstinately refused to listen.
“How about, if somebody did plan to do something like this, and it was a long-term plan, they would take into account that their… let’s say, their digital handwriting would be recognized?”
Harrison pursed his lips.
“I considered that, too.”
Leigh huffed impatiently.
“You know, if you would just tell me what you’ve considered and ruled out, and why…”
Harrison nodded.
“Yes. We’re following the same pattern here. I’d prefer to think of this as a competitor – that would mean it’s straightforward business. But I have a few sources, and I tapped them. I got nothing.”
Leigh’s eyes widened.
“Industrial espionage,” she exclaimed triumphantly.
“Very low key industrial espionage, let’s say. Everybody does this. Anyway, there’s no buzz anywhere – at all, not even a little bit. I got Dave – you remember Dave, from cybercrimes – to do me a favor, too. There was nothing. On the bright side, Darius’s little worm ate away everything that led back to me, so they have nothing to go on with, either. But he might have erased any more clues that the hacker left, too.”
&n
bsp; Darius shook his head firmly.
“No, I can target the mopper quite precisely. That’s also why it took so long. If there’s nothing left, it’s because he made sure there was nothing left. You know, if he weren’t such a bastard, I’d admire him. He sure has chops.”
Leigh sighed and let the boys banter for a couple of minutes before breaking in again.
“In that case, Harrison, I think we should consider that this is personal. I know you don’t want to, but, well, some of your business triumphs probably became quite personal. A few people who lost to you might also have taken it personally.”
Harrison nodded, again reluctantly.
“It’s a possibility,” he admitted.
“Do you have a list?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
Harrison shrugged.
“This isn’t a game, Harrison. You have been targeted. Now that you’ve got somebody to play with, you think this is some kind of a joke. It’s not a game!”
Harrison grinned.
“It’s all a game. Relax, Leigh. We’ll figure it out. I’m not alone anymore, remember? That’s the point?”
Leigh really hated having her words thrown back at her.
“Anyway,” went on Harrison hurriedly, “we’ve made good progress. I have a list of people who can, conceivably, have this level of skill. Now we have to…. What the hell?”
“Shit, shit, shit, he’s at it. He’s at it now. Come on!”
The thrill of the hunt shone in Harrison’s eyes as he grabbed the keyboard and started typing, with Darius keeping up with him, just as thrilled.
Chapter 9
Leigh watched, fascinated, as they talked in shorthand that she frankly didn’t understand. They barked short orders and, to her eyes, at least, seemed to move like a seamless team.
“That’s right, got you now, you little… Damn, you slippery bastard!”
After about twenty breathless minutes, Harrison looked up at Darius, frustrated.
“He’s gone.”
Darius nodded.
Our Happily Ever After: BWWM Interracial Romance Black Women White Men (That Forbidden Love Book 3) Page 9
