The Hack, page 2
Raya swung her legs over the railing, landing softly on her feet. She ran down the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could. She was one floor from the ground when she heard a door close. She held her breath and crouched low, hiding behind the bars, praying the darkness would conceal her presence.
“She’s dead, or she’s gone,” one man said as he walked toward her with one hand to his ear.
She didn’t dare breathe.
“The building has an old chute . . . we’ve checked every exit point and the basement, but we can’t find her,” he said as he looked up, straight at her. She noted the scar that ran through his eyebrow immediately, but she quickly diverted her eyes, squeezing them shut and holding her breath until her lungs burned.
She waited for the bullets to come, but they didn’t. She opened her eyes when she heard footsteps retreating and saw his silhouette merge into the darkness.
Raya was too terrified to move, and too terrified to stay still. Her eyes darted from building to building. She needed a plan.
She stayed crouched on the stairs, making sure his phone call hadn’t been a trap to lure her out, thinking they’d gone.
Raya began to shiver but she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the adrenaline rush that had assaulted her body.
Eventually, Raya stood to a crouched posture and took the stairs down to the ground. Her eyes scanned the dark alley, but she didn’t see anyone hiding in the shadows, nor did she hear any footsteps or voices. She peered around the corner of the building, the way the man had gone, but it was empty.
She stood at the corner of the building with no idea which way to go.
Think, Raya, think.
Her eyes landed on the alley that ran behind the neighboring building. It was a risk, but so was every move she made right now.
Raya drew a deep breath then sprinted for the building, her heart pounding in her chest. She made it to the other side without being shot at and exhaled the breath she’d been holding. The advantage she had right now was that she knew West Englewood, Chicago, better than most. She’d spent every minute of her life here, some of it on the streets.
West Englewood was known as one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods, and every step she took alone at night—and sometimes during the day—was fraught with danger.
No one dreamed of having a childhood like Raya’s, but when she eventually died they would have respect for the life she’d lived—a promise she’d made to herself when she’d started working on this hack. It was a hack that would leave a legacy, because she refused to go through this world with her life counting for nothing. She’d considered a standard career in IT many years ago, but she’d been too young when she’d first considered the career and she hadn’t wanted to raise any flags and get dragged into the foster system. So she’d trained herself, illegally hacking into various systems just to obtain the skills she’d needed to investigate her mother’s death. Now she made enough money doing freelance jobs on the side—carefully choosing the jobs, selecting those that would keep her identity a secret and would still allow her enough time to investigate KinTech. That was her priority. She’d worry about using her time and skill to make money later. But first, someone would pay for her mother’s death. She would make sure of it.
And when she did eventually make some decent money, she would move out of her crappy apartment and into a beautiful, modern apartment in River North where she would be surrounded by a fabulous array of art galleries and history-defining buildings. That was her dream, and no one was going to take it from her.
Raya pulled her hood over her head and kept her shoulders against the building, hiding her small frame in the shadows. She thought back to the warning message that had saved her life earlier. The only person she knew skilled enough to get into that system without leaving a digital trace was Aureliano Rossi—and that’s exactly why she needed his help. However, he wasn’t the kind of person she could walk up to and ask for help. He was Aureliano Rossi, the son of one of Chicago’s wealthiest businessmen and one of the best hackers Raya had come across—a secret he kept hidden from the world. So, dropping in on him uninvited, when she shouldn’t even know his address, and when he knew she was being hunted, was probably not going to land her an invitation to come in for a drink.
Not yet at least, she thought as she continued walking, the tension melting from her body the farther away from her apartment she got. Raya couldn’t afford to let her guard down, not tonight, not until she’d accomplished her mission and the people involved had been exposed. Only then could she fully exhale.
Movement in the alley behind her made her pulse leap and she stilled, ducking below the dumpster. A moment passed, then she heard kids snickering. She rolled her eyes, annoyed. She stood and continued walking until she hit the main street and hailed a taxi. She would pay cash, leaving no obvious trace of her whereabouts.
She got in and gave the driver the address for a restaurant not far from Aureliano’s house. She wouldn’t knock on his door tonight, but she would begin to formulate a plan.
Raya didn’t speak a word the entire way to the restaurant, nor did the taxi driver—for which Raya was grateful because her mind worked best when silence hung around it like a barrier from the outside world.
She returned her attention to the streets, scanning them for men in suits.
The taxi pulled up at the restaurant six blocks from the Aureliano’s house and Raya passed the taxi driver some cash before getting out. She looked over her shoulder, but this side of town was nothing like the South Side. The air seemed different here, like it carried sweet notes of peace rather than fear. This was the life Raya wanted, and she was going to get it—but only if she could do it in a way that allowed her to sleep peacefully at night. She could hack systems and make money by selling data, but she didn’t want to hurt innocent people. She wanted to expose crime and make them pay for it, a justice vigilante of sorts. She could be rich and sleep with a clear conscience living that life.
Once the taxi driver veered onto the road and away from the restaurant, Raya walked back toward Aureliano’s house. Her footsteps echoed through the quiet streets, but no one followed behind her. She walked slowly, taking her time, soaking in the details around her. She noted the cars parked on the street and memorized their plates. She noticed which gates were open, which were closed, and which had numeric keypads to open them. She noted which fences were lower and easier to climb over. She noted the type of locks on the front doors. She was not planning to break in and rob anyone but living on the streets had taught her to prepare for any situation and that meant paying attention to the details. People who lived privileged lives walked through them in a daydream, lost in their thoughts. But not Raya . . . daydreaming would get her killed.
For a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would’ve been like to grow up here in Gold Coast, Chicago—the rich neighborhood. She chewed on her cheek mindlessly. Aureliano had made one mistake a year ago to this date—a mistake that had allowed her to uncover his true identity. Who would’ve thought that the man living at 77 E Cedar Street, Gold Coast, was one of the best hackers she’d come across and who had ultimately been the one to get her inside KinTech’s system.
They’d been talking online for over a year, trading secrets and helping each other when needed. It was a friendship of sorts, and coupled with the fact that he was the only one skilled enough to hack the system, it was why she thought he’d sent her the warning message.
She noted the gold house numbers on the fences as she walked slowly down his street, constantly checking over her shoulder and listening for footsteps behind her. She’d already seen Aureliano’s house online but being here in real life was different. The houses appeared to loom in the night and that was even truer for Aureliano’s house when it came into view. It was a black mansion wedged between two beige stone mansions and it appeared ominous. She wondered again why he’d painted the entire house black because it had been beige when the previous owner had lived in it.
Maybe because he could, Raya thought. She suspected Aureliano could do almost anything he wanted. The Rossi family had old money—the kind Raya had never seen in her life. Aureliano’s grandfather had been in shipping and his father had invested the family money in real estate . . . and perhaps a more lucrative side business that seemed to be linked to the mafia although she’d never been able to find evidence to prove it despite how hard she’d looked. She supposed that was because most of their dealings were in cash.
Digging into Aureliano’s family had become a hobby, and she couldn’t say why. Maybe it was the fascination with him, because Aureliano Rossi was a poster boy for the bad-boy-rich-kid but from her interactions with him online, she’d seen a wickedly intelligent human being who had not once been rude or arrogant in his messages.
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She held her breath as she stopped in front of Aureliano’s black house with its intricate moldings and large black door. The curtains were drawn, but light sneaked behind the curtains of a window on the third floor. She found herself wondering if Aureliano was in that room, and if he was online now. She sighed, shaking her head. She needed to focus and work out how to convince Aureliano to help her because she was as good as dead if she returned to her apartment, and Raya had no one else to turn to—no one she trusted more, because Aureliano knew things about her that he could’ve used to his advantage, but he never had . . . that she knew of.
However, she’d also never turned up on his doorstep.
CHAPTER 3
Raya scanned the street, looking for a place to watch. She eyed the neighbor’s gardens and identified a tree that would give her the vantage point she’d need.
She crossed the street and picked up a stone from the neighboring property, then walked along the footpath, closer to the tree. When she was within range, she threw the stone and held her breath, waiting for any security lights to activate. When none did, Raya shook her head in amazement—they didn’t even have security lights.
Scanning the street for anyone who might be watching her, she walked to the tree and climbed up it. She reached for the higher branch and jumped up, wrapping her arms around it and swinging her legs up. She crouched on the branch, holding the trunk of the tree. It held her weight easily and she exhaled with relief. Slowly, carefully, she shifted her backpack around so it was on her front, then turned so her back was against the trunk and slid down to sit on the branch. She crossed her legs beneath her and exhaled properly for the first time since she’d received that warning message. Every now and then, her eyes scanned the street but mostly they stayed on the window of the third floor. Her phone beeped and she unzipped the pocket of her backpack and pulled it out. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.
AR: Are you okay?
Her eyes flickered back to the window, yearning to see through the drawn curtains. Yearning for a glimpse of Aureliano Rossi.
Astra: Yes. Why?
She waited patiently for a response, testing him. He’d never messaged her through the app to ask her if she was okay. They talked about hacking, not life.
AR: Hunter and DarkReaper have been offline for two days. I can’t reach them.
Hunter and DarkReaper were the code names Aureliano and Raya had assigned the two hackers that had been working on the KinTech hack with them. Raya had given herself the code name Astra, for no other reason that she liked the name. She’d never given Aureliano a code name and she wasn’t entirely sure why that was, other than she supposed she felt like she already knew him, and they didn’t need code names.
Raya sucked in a sharp breath and regret rolled through her, making her stomach churn.
Then she frowned, if Aureliano had known she was in danger and had sent the warning message, why hadn’t he been able to warn them too?
Astra: Why didn’t you warn them like you warned me?
AR: What are you talking about?
Raya’s eyebrows lifted and she looked to the window. If Aureliano hadn’t warned her, who had?
Astra: I received a message telling me I had ten minutes . . . I thought you sent it because no one else knows how to get into KinTech’s system.
A moment passed, then another. Raya eventually assumed he’d gone silent but then his response came.
AR: I wish I’d sent it but I didn’t. Someone else was watching what you were doing. Hunter and DarkReaper also had access to the system.
AR: Are you somewhere safe?
Astra: Very safe
Safe, assuming no one had followed her here—which she was confident they hadn’t—and assuming she didn’t fall asleep and fall off the branch and break her neck.
AR: What happened?
Astra: Men in suits with guns came for me.
AR: We need to shut this down. It’s gone too far. It’s not worth dying over.
Astra: Wrong. We’re so close to the truth. We need to step it up.
AR: I won’t help you with this anymore.
Raya’s teeth ground together.
Astra: I’ll do it on my own.
She closed the app and turned off her phone, disappointment settling in like a bitter aftertaste. She had no right to expect his help and his loyalty, but it stung regardless.
She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply to calm her boiling anger.
She looked back to Aureliano’s house, to the window with the light on.
If he wasn’t going to help her, she would force him to.
Raya would not stop until she had access to HaloTech’s system.
The street remained quiet, but sleep continued to evade her. It wasn’t helped by the fact that she’d been sitting on a cold, hard tree branch for hours. Her body was aching and she needed the toilet and a large cup of coffee, in that order, but instinct told her to stay where she was a little longer.
Her persistence paid off when an hour later the light on the third floor turned off and a few moments later the front door opened. A tall, well-built figure emerged, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. She’d seen pictures of Aureliano Rossi online—his bleached short hair, sharp jaw line, and blue eyes were captivating in photos, but even from her position high up in the tree like a stalker, the sight of him made her throat dry. He was beautiful in a menacing way.
As he descended the few steps from the front door to the path to the street, a black sedan pulled up at the front.
Raya frowned, her eyes narrowing as she memorized the license plate.
The car idled as Aureliano walked up to it, pulled something from his back pocket, and handed it to the person in the passenger seat. The car drove away and Aureliano stood for a moment, his hands in his pockets, watching the car disappear down the street.
Then he turned, his eyes seeming to scan the street, before he went back inside.
Raya mulled over what she’d just witnessed. What had he passed to the passenger? It could have been as simple as something that a friend left behind earlier in the day. Or, it could be drugs or information of some kind—definitely possible if the family had mafia ties. However, if it was illegal, Aureliano Rossi was bold because he’d made no effort to hide what he was doing.
Raya pulled her laptop out of her backpack and searched for the owner of the license plate. She typed in the plate number and waited for the results to load.
Raya’s gaze flickered between her laptop and the black house. When the light turned on on the third floor—just visible despite the rising sun—she was convinced it was either Aureliano’s office or perhaps his bedroom. She filed away that information, unaware of how it would be any help to her in the future, but her mind worked like that—always storing and collecting information like it was preparing for an exam that had not yet been written.
Her laptop beeped and her eyes dropped to the screen.
Rossi Enterprises.
So the car was registered to his family business, which could mean nothing, or it could mean a lot. Raya shook her head, another idea mulling over in her mind. She had attempted to hack Rossi Enterprises on numerous occasions before but she’d never succeeded—she suspected Aureliano had a lot to do with that and it was the very reason she needed him. Aureliano seemed to specialize in systems, whereas Raya’s speciality was piecing together seemingly unrelated pieces of information. She supposed that was because of the way her mind worked—she had an innate way of recalling information. She only had to look at a date and she would remember the events of that day, even if it had happened weeks earlier. Sometimes Raya forgot silly things like where her house keys were, but when it came to information she paid attention to—that she was interested in—she could recall anything she needed.
Raya put her laptop back into her bag and climbed down the tree. She dusted herself off, her butt glad to be off the cold branch, and walked across the street and up to the front door before she could second-guess herself.
She pressed the doorbell with a slightly trembling finger and then drew a steadying breath as she waited.
“Can I help you?” a female voice answered.
“Hi. I’m here to see Aureliano,” Raya said, looking straight ahead and keeping her voice neutral like this was, in fact, an arranged visit.
“One moment,” she replied.
Raya waited quite a few moments more until the woman spoke again. “Aureliano isn’t home. May I ask who I’m speaking to?”
Raya wasn’t surprised. “Aureliano is home. Please tell him it’s urgent.”
“Please leave the property, otherwise I’m going to call the police.”
A small smile turned up the corner of Raya’s lips ever so slightly. This woman was painfully predictable.
“Before you do that, please tell Aureliano that Astra is here to visit him because he’s clearly forgotten about our appointment.”
She held her breath now, knowing he’d have heard her.
The woman’s response didn’t come, but a few seconds later the door opened and Aureliano Rossi stood in front of her, his blue eyes piercing her with anger.
