Hacked By The Beast – Stephany Simmons

Hours passed as I carefully worked my way through layer after layer of security. My eyes burned from staring at the screen, and my neck ached from tension, but I pressed on, driven by the memory of that kiss in the darkness and the need to finally see the man behind it.

Just after 2 AM, I hit what I thought was the final firewall. Beyond it lay Adam’s core server, and victory. My fingers flew over the keyboard, implementing the exploit I’d spent days developing. The firewall wavered, codes flickering as my program worked to dissolve its protection. I leaned forward, holding my breath as access codes began to appear on my screen. “Yes,” I whispered, watching the final barriers crumble. Then, without warning, my screen went black. For a moment, I thought I’d crashed his system, or mine.

But then, slowly, green text began to appear in the center of the darkness: Redirecting to secure server… My heart sank as understanding dawned. What I’d thought was his core server had been a decoy, an elaborate honeypot designed to make me believe I was succeeding while actually leading me exactly where he wanted me to go. More text appeared: Challenge completed. Breach unsuccessful. Game over, Claire. I stared at the screen in disbelief.

I’d been so sure I was on the right track, so certain I’d found the path to victory. How had I missed the signs of a redirect? A new message appeared: You came closer than anyone ever has. But not close enough. I typed back furiously: That was dirty pool.

A honeypot designed to waste my time while you worked on my system. All’s fair in love and hacking, came his reply. Check your personal files. My stomach dropped as I quickly navigated to my private folder—the target Adam had been aiming for. Everything seemed intact at first glance, but then I noticed a new file that definitely hadn’t been there before: “Victory.mp4” With a sense of dread and curiosity, I clicked to open it.

The video showed the room I was working in, specifically, my desk where I’d been working for the past several hours.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Title Page Copyright Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Books By This Author OceanofPDF.com CHAPTER 1 Claire Looking back, marrying the cool guy was my biggest mistake.

Ten years ago, my ex-husband had loved the wild girl I was, the one who partied until dawn and wore bruises from the derby track like badges of honor. Three months ago, he filed for divorce. Said we’d grown apart. Sure. Maybe. But deep down, I didn’t buy it. I think the real issue was that I hadn’t “grown up” the way he had.

At 25, my roller derby bruises, crazy hair, and piercings were hot. At 34, not so much. I was pretty sure the whole grown apart line was just a polite way to ditch me for some bimbo in business casual with a designer handbag. I wasn’t bitter. Really, 100% not bitter. If he didn’t want to be with me, I didn’t want to be with him. It could have been as easy as that.

If Sean had just come to me and said “Claire, you still skate around the neighborhood instead of going to pilates.” Or whatever the real housewives were doing these days for fitness. “Or you have three nose rings. If you take one of them out, I won’t leave.” I might have said yes. We might have worked it out. Or not. But Sean hadn’t given me that choice. Instead, he walked away, leaving me with three months in our house, the heartbreak, and a lingering desire for just a little payback.

Which brings us to me, sitting in front of my computer with a glass of wine, staring at his bank accounts. Of course he’d changed his password immediately for fear of this very thing happening, but once you live with someone, cracking their passwords becomes child’s play. I leaned back in my chair and considered donating his $585k nest egg to Habitat for Humanity.

I didn’t do it. Not because I was particularly noble, but because transferring that much money would definitely get noticed. And while I might be bitter, despite my protests to the contrary, I wasn’t stupid. Instead, I poured another glass of wine and started scrolling through old photos. Two glasses in, I was lost in a spiral of what-might-have-beens.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: d489ae21e90346fd
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,502,335 bytes (1.433 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 309
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 316.0 minutes
• Total Words: 63,200
• Total Characters: 368,351
• Average Words per Page: 204.53
• Average Characters per Page: 1192.07

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