The Hacker (The Bro Series Book 2) Page 3

  Fuck, my cock wants to just rest on the 1 key.

  “Are those…butterfly tattoos creeping up the back of her thighs?”

  A snarl slips from between my gritted teeth.

  Wyatt chuckles mockingly in my ear at the same time he drops an arm around my shoulder. “Estás jodido.”

  My voice comes out strained, “What does that mean?”

  “You're fucked, bro.”

  Completely.

  I lean back in my leather office chair, eyes staring absentmindedly at the black screen waiting to be turned on. Waiting to toss me into the pits of perversion my life revolves around. I know I’m doing the right thing. I know chasing down these sick sons of bitches is better than being some boring IT asshole, or manager of some IT team, but sometimes I wish it was a choice. Not a sentence.

  There’s a light tap on the open door, and I swivel to face the visitor.

  Meena’s face lights up like a computer fresh from sleep mode at the sight behind me. Her jaw cracks open and all I want to do is fill the space. Doesn’t matter if it’s with my tongue or dick. All I want is to have her constantly consumed by me.

  With me.

  The runaway train of thoughts has me adjusting in my chair. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” she quietly replies, inviting herself in, eyes still observing the setting.

  Her immodest entrance into the room along with the free roaming her attention is conducting creates an unexpected response.

  It’s like watching someone crack open their tower and be surprised at the number of parts that make their computer function.

  Her eyes gradually roam around the downstairs den I converted into my work area. The room itself doesn’t possess anything more than the basic necessities to get my job done. There’s one long desk built into the wall, monitors on it and above, protected towers, and two chairs in case I have unwanted company in the form of my handler. I left the walls a pale gray and stained the cement to match. There’s a pad on the wall to help me keep track of the years I have left to shave off. It feels like a prison cell because it is one. There’s an old fashion lock you have to have a key for, but also a digital keypad I change the code for on an unpredictable rotation that you have to use immediately afterward. Past that point, there are motion sensors in the room that require my voice activation and my security phrase to prevent everything on the hard drives from self-destructing. I don’t worry about what dirt I may or may not lose by having that happen. Every respectable hacker knows you never keep your leverage all in one place.

  I clear my throat. “You um…You have everything you need?”

  “Si.”

  “Did you check?”

  “Si.”

  “Towels? Were they the right style? Right size and color?”

  Meena merely hums her answer.

  “What about your toothpaste? Do you mind the mint or do I need to grab another brand?”

  The question doesn’t seem to warrant any response.

  Her alluring, brown stare lands on me and my heart threatens to punch itself out of my chest.

  I ignored these feelings for years when we were closer.

  I sure as shit should be able to ignore them now.

  Meena playfully asks, “So, this is where the magic happens?”

  “I thought that was the bedroom.”

  My thoughtless bawdy response is well received. “Pretty sure it’s wherever your fingers are, mi corazón…”

  A grin begrudgingly crawls onto my face.

  Zero. I have got to keep hitting fucking zero.

  Meena flops down into the empty chair, which isn’t for guests. It’s for the FBI agent sent to retrieve me or the information I have. This room isn’t for entertaining. It isn’t for visitors. It isn’t for her yet I can’t seem to form the words to instruct her to leave. I’ve never had this problem before. I never hesitated to kick Beth out, but then again, she rarely ever crossed the threshold. She respected what I did but loathed the reason I had to. Still have to. She never understood why I risked what I did.

  She never risked anything for anyone other than herself.

  Our children included.

  The beautiful new distraction I don’t need in my life asks, “Think you can do a favor for me?”

  “Working for me less than a day and already asking for favors? Not giving me good vibes.”

  Like before, she takes the teasing happily. Plasters on a smirk. Lets her brown eyes sparkle. “I can give you great ones if you let me….”

  1…

  0.

  I helplessly smile despite the fact I wanna do so much more.

  She’s so fucking different than the woman I married. Beth smiled and I knew without a doubt despite the ugliness I had come across in the world, there was hope. An undeniable, universal belief that goodness still exists even if sometimes we just have to look a little deeper. It didn’t matter if her smile was usually a giant lie. It still instilled a false feeling I loved buying into. But when Meena smiles, there’s this indescribable invisibility that pumps through my veins I don’t understand. It makes me feel bulletproof.

  Unbreakable.

  Appreciate the strengths I actually possess and the real difference I have and can make.

  “What do you need?”

  Casually, she pulls a small white business card from her bra.

  I swallow the urge to moan at the tiny bounce of her tits.

  “My baby sister, Mia, wants to be a model,” she begins with defeat already in her tone.

  I don’t admit that I’ve already done my research, that I’ve already seen the pictures she wants the world to see and the ones she doesn’t think anyone other than some college freshman she was into earlier this year will. If she were older, I could see the appeal. She looks likes the woman who happens to be slowing down my processing system.

  “This man, she randomly met at the mall while shopping with friends, gave her his card, claiming he runs a talent agency. My father is refusing to even entertain the idea, but Mia is refusing to let this go.”

  Hearing her confide in me her family issues shifts something inside of me.

  Only my bros are usually this open and even then, I usually have to drag the shit they wanna discuss out of them by admitting I already know what they’re trying to hide. It’s why they hate me as much as they love me. I constantly know more about their lives than they do. Everything I discover is calculated, sorted and stored. There are no surprises for me. Why would there be? Having all the information I want literally at my fingertips benefits everyone and keeps me productive.

  Keeps me useful in their lives.

  After all what purpose does an out of date program serve?

  “I already looked up the website online. It looks legit, but I’m not an idiot. I know anyone can have a website just like anyone can get business cards printed.” She offers me an innocent look at the same time she hands me the card. “Mind checking out this guy for me when you have time?”

  “Yeah, I can do that now.”

  “Really, Holden. It can wait.”

  “It can’t.”

  “It can. Whenever-”

  “Now is good,” I insist and swivel back towards my computer.

  As it loads, I twirl the card between my fingers, unfortunately already aware he’s most likely a scammer or something worse. Far worse. This is just one of the many games monsters like to play, but luckily for her, I play it better.

  Much fucking better.

  Part of me wishes she truly knew how much…

  No.

  0.

  Just after typing in the set of passcodes to gain access to my device, Meena asks, “So, what is it you exactly do for the FBI again?”

  “I consult as part of my work release program.”

  “Work release?”

  My nod is not enough for her.

  “What do you mean work release?”

  Reluctantly, I reply, “I was arrested for grand larceny my senior year in
college, but due to the level of talent I possess, I was given the choice to rot in a cell with limited visitation to my wife and son, or become a member of a special task force to hunt down those involved or participating in illegal activities such as the auctioning off of underage women and children online.”

  There are a few crucial details missing from the story, but those are enough.

  Those have to be enough.

  “Grand larceny? Isn’t that like theft?”

  I begin scanning the windows on the screen that are popped open and separating them accordingly. “Much bigger scale.”

  “What exactly did you do?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Is it a secret?”

  Considering it caused an entire campus to review policies and procedures, I would have to say no.

  “I hacked my way into Clover Rose.”

  “You mean like off the wait list?”

  “No, I mean I hacked into being a student. We’re talking the whole nine yards including hacking my way out of ever paying tuition.”

  “Are you fucking serious?!”

  The excitement and amusement in her tone strokes my ego in new ways. “Absolutely.”

  “But don’t they have shit in place that should make that virtually impossible?”

  I glance over at her with a triumphant smirk. “They do.”

  Her eyes widen, which ignites that feeling of being untouchable inside of me all over again. The reality is I’m not. And those same brown eyes that are staring at me in awe are the same ones that got me this prison sentence, even if they’ll never have any idea about it.

  Rather than admit out loud what I swore to myself I never would, what I made the government swear she’d never know, I turn back around, and state, “There’s virtually no digital trace of this man.”

  Meena quickly questions, “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “In this day and age? Typically, yes. His website, is shit. Those so-called model photos,” my fingers click the keys, “are of google searched images. The host information, like the email address and other shit you type in when you register, all fake, and if you follow that information just a little further down you hit essentially a dead end.”

  Or in any other circumstances what I would just call a momentary stopping point.

  “Meaning the guy is a fake?”

  My body turns to face her. “He’s more than a fake. He’s definitely a predator.”

  The very kind I spend countless hours hunting.

  Disappointment falls on her face. “And you’re sure? Absolutely sure?”

  I shake my head with growing vexation. “Why is it people constantly ask me that after they come to me for help? Like I’m making this shit up? Look at the fucking screens, Meena. Look at the lack of fucking presence. This man is pretending to be someone else to hide that who he really is, is someone he doesn’t want found. And finding out who people really are is what I do. I have built entire programs to aid me. The type of information it would take most people years or months to cultivate I can do in minutes. I know more about who you are from the digital print you leave behind than you could ever imagine.”

  It should terrify her. Hell, it terrifies me. The little traces people leave behind and don’t think twice about are the scents I follow. The boundaries I cross. The dots I connect. Everything from innocent photos to phone calls to things more in depth like GPS and banking codes can be used. Are used. No matter how private you think you are, the truth is nothing is inaccessible any more if you know how to get to it.

  Meena leans back in her chair and folds her hands into her lap. “Impress me.”

  The childish antic should have me rolling my eyes or at the very least insisting she get over herself, but the bait is too easy not to take.

  Too easy not to snatch.

  Too easy not to hit 1.

  “Give me a challenge.”

  She wets her lips, reeling me further in. “What’s my favorite flavor of ice cream?”

  I nod, turn back to the computer, and begin typing.

  Within seconds, she commands, “Tell me what you’re doing.”

  “You have eyes.”

  “Explain it.”

  Every hacker is different. To say or imply we all have one trail we follow would be perjury. Ripping apart someone’s online existence goes beyond a few clicks and changes of code. It goes beyond tearing down a firewall or working around a password. To me it’s like sex. There are times when it’s fast and rough, where my heart races so rapidly, I swear it’s going to come right out of my chest and explode on the screen. Those are the times the darkness I have spent years trying to conceal withers from my cracks and consumes everything in its wake. No one is safe. Not my daughter’s pre-school teacher who thinks no one will ever find out she’s having an affair with one of her student’s fathers. Not my son’s soccer coach who has a severe foot fetish. Not the pizza delivery boy who experimented with the quarterback at his high school. Those are times I fear for my own life. For my sanity. The discovery of what lies in the darkness is delicious and exhilarating. It’s like coming and then having the ability to go another round with no reprieve necessary. It’s like coming so hard your mind blacks out. There is nothing else. Just the euphoria of release. But then there are times like these, when it’s easy. Casual. Thoughtless. It’s a routine response. My body just naturally flows where my mind commands it. There’s no lasting trauma or further fuel to confirm my belief that the world is too damaged to ever be repaired. Just facts. Just figures. Just your routine orgasm. Nothing special. A relief is still had, but it barely alters your state.

  Meena scoots her chair closer to me. “I’m waiting.”

  My eyes dart her direction. “I’m hacking your life apart. Pun intended.”

  The intrigue pumping in her eyes swells my cock.

  Now is not the time….

  Fuck.

  It’ll never be the time…

  “I’ve developed several programs to help make what it is I am trying to accomplish at any given time more efficient. The program to my left is known as Grayson. Basically, he’s given a keyword to search your online activity for mentioning of. Every social post, every email, every private message. Anytime the key word appears in one of those areas, he pulls it up, which is what is covering that screen as you can see.” I toss my head to the screen closest to her. “Over there is Drake. He’s given an image or set of images to look for. Anything it recognizes as ice cream in multiple formats. We’re talking cups of it, cones, gallons, in the background of grocery store selfies. Drake is essentially crossing image recognition through all photos you have posted online in any capacity.” Her eyes enlarge as my fingers resume typing. “Then you’ve got Wayne, he’s helping run through your personal computer, and Robin, who is trailing through your texts and really anything connected to your storage cloud.”

  Meena remains silent, which isn’t surprising. Most people are too stunned to speak when they truly see their existence actually being violated.

  I let out a hum while my attention oscillates between the three screens. “It appears from the initial searches, the answer to your question would be cookie dough.” With a quick click, I pull up seven photos, “That’s what you claim to be eating in these photos.” More clicks. “And according to these ten text messages and then,” I type again, “four emails, it would be the most logical guess.” My hands remove themselves from the keyboard with a winning smirk. “When you analyze the given data, it is the most consecutive flavor mentioned.”

  To my surprise, what appears to be a victorious smile crosses her lips. “But it’s not my actual favorite.”

  “From what I see-”

  “Sometimes what you perceive isn’t always the whole picture,” she corrects moving her chair back. “That’s the thing about actual people, Holden. We’re more than just digital tracks. More than just files you can open with a click.” I prepare to argue when she drifts her thick thighs apart. “Then again, so
metimes you can get exactly what you’re looking for with just one…touch.”

  Against my better judgment, I steal a glance of the area.

  One touch and I’ll know if she’s wearing panties.

  One touch and I’ll know if watching me work made her wet.

  One touch and I’ll know exactly how much she wants me.