46. Graham
46
GRAHAM
“Got you, you slippery little fuckers.”
The second Blackwire Collective takes the bait, I see it. A flicker in the system, so small they think they’re moving undetected. But they aren’t. It’s a good thing I’m patient because they’ve taken their sweet time.
But now they’re on the hook, so time is irrelevant.
The corner of my mouth hooks into a grin as I watch him as easily as if it were a two-way mirror.
My fingers fly over the keyboard, tracing their movements, mapping their keystrokes. Every click is another data point, another piece of the puzzle coming together.
I’ve been chasing these guys for months, unraveling their tangled web one thread at a time. School districts all over the country hit with ransomware attacks, their systems locked down and held hostage until the ransom is paid. Millions of dollars extorted, funneled through shell companies and offshore accounts.
They don’t limit their technique to school districts though. As I dig deeper, following the digital breadcrumbs they’ve left behind, a disturbing pattern starts to emerge.
Small tech startups, biotech research labs, renewable energy firms, companies on the verge of major breakthroughs or lucrative government contracts. One by one, they all fall victim to crippling ransomware attacks. Their data encrypted, systems paralyzed, until the ransom is paid.
But that’s not the end of it. Mere days or weeks after each attack, the vulnerable companies get acquired. The pieces are falling into place, revealing a sinister pattern. These aren't just random, opportunistic attacks. This is calculated. Targeted.
Someone is crippling these companies with ransomware to drive down their value, then swooping in to acquire them for pennies on the dollar. They bleed them dry, strip them for parts, then move on to the next victim.
It’s ruthlessly efficient. And completely untraceable. Until now. Until Sentinel and Oracle do most of the heavy-lifting.
They’re good, I’ll give them that. Covering their tracks, bouncing their signal through a maze of proxy servers to obscure their trail.
If I had to guess, I’d say based on the slightly different signatures, there are ten people operating under Blackwire Collective. All muscle for hire. Sure, they’re coordinating and executing these attacks, but they’re not leading the ships. They don’t benefit outside of their fee.
And I’ve got an insider look into one of their computers.
I’m not going to fucking waste it.
My fingers move fast, tracking their every keystroke, mirroring their actions in real-time. While Blackwire Collective hops between dark forums and encrypted chat rooms, I slip undetected into the shadowed recesses of their system. It’s like entering a labyrinth, twisting corridors of code branching off in every direction. But I know these pathways intimately, can navigate them as easily as the familiar streets of my hometown.
I move with purpose, with laser-focused precision. Every keystroke is deliberate, every command executed with surgical accuracy. I weave through their firewalls and trip wires, ghost through their honeypots and sinkholes. They think their defenses are enough, and they are. But not good enough to keep me out.
Taking one computer out isn’t going to stop them. But taking their money? That’s going to take them out at the knees.
The back of my necks pricks with heat, but I don’t take even a few seconds to stretch it out. The countdown is on. Any second they could realize they’ve been compromised, and it’s unlikely I’ll get this opportunity again.
A low chuckle floats into the air of my office, tangling up with the music from my speakers. Their financial channels are in a bookmarked tab.
Fucking amateurs.
I pause, my fingers hovering over the keys. Could this be a trap? The thought flickers through my mind for a split second before I dismiss it. No, they’re not that clever. Their arrogance is their weakness, their belief in their own invincibility blinding them to the cracks in their armor.
They thought they were untouchable. That their money was safe.
Cute.
With a few swift keystrokes, I’m in. Layers of encryption peel away, revealing the tangled web of their financial network. Offshore accounts, shell corporations, a dizzying array of entities designed to launder their ill-gotten gains. It’s complex, but it’s easy to move it.
Too fucking easy.
I reroute the funds into a restricted hold, lock their access, freeze their assets before they even know they’ve been breached.
I watch as the balances drain to zero, the numbers ticking down like a countdown to their destruction. A thrill of satisfaction hums through my veins, electric and addictive. The rush of the hunt, the high of the takedown. The knowledge that I’m making the world a little bit safer, one scumbag criminal enterprise at a time. I already have big plans to anonymously donate the majority of the money to the school districts affected.
But I’m not done yet. Cutting off their money supply is just the first step. Now it’s time to really twist the knife.
My fingers fly across the keyboard as I dig deeper, burrowing into the darkest corners of their network. I’m looking for anything I can use to identify the members. Communications, transaction records, personal information on key players. Anything to help me put all the pieces together.
I’m so absorbed in my task, I almost miss it. The first sign of panic. An urgency in their commands, a misfire. But by the time they understand what’s happening, it’s already too late.
I lean back slightly, watching as they flail, their code unraveling in real-time. Desperate. Sloppy. Slower than me.
This isn’t just about locking them out. This is about starving them. Without this money, they don’t get paid. And if they don’t get paid, they start making mistakes.
A low hum of satisfaction rumbles in my chest as I watch them scramble, their commands sharp and frantic now.
But it’s too late. I already took it all. And there’s not a goddamn thing they can do to stop me.
I barely take a breath before my screen flickers. A new window appears, a live camera feed. For half a second, I assume I accidentally opened the window. But the background and angle are off.
“What the fuck?” I turn up my volume and lean forward.
Francesca’s laughter rings out from the computer speakers, the sound etched into my brain like a favorite melody. Then she comes into view, her back to the camera as she’s talking about warlords or something.
A cold weight settles in my chest when realization dawns. I don’t have cameras in Fiction & Folklore. But this angle is off. It almost looks like the view from the tablet she uses as a checkout.
Francesca is still laughing and chatting with someone off-screen, oblivious to the violation, to the fact that she's being watched by unseen eyes. My blood runs cold at the sight, rage and terror warring inside me.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I stare at the screen, at Francesca’s smiling face, completely unaware that she’s being watched. Unaware of the danger lurking just beyond the edges of the frame.
How could I have been so fucking careless? So arrogant to think that just because I secured the house, she’d be safe everywhere else?
I grip the edge of my desk, my knuckles turning white as a litany of curses spill from my lips. I should have installed cameras in the bookstore the day she signed the lease. Should have hard-wired them into a closed network with military-grade encryption. Should have covered every square inch of that place, inside and out, so there wasn’t a single blind spot, a single vulnerability.
The oversight chafes, sharp and bitter. Unforgivable. I fucked up, let my guard down. Let myself get complacent. And now Francesca is exposed. Vulnerable.
I force myself to take a breath, struggling to tamp down the rising tide of anger and self-recrimination.
Then how the hell am I seeing this?
I switch screens, pulling up my security network, scanning for breaches. There’s nothing, which means . . .
Horror slams into me. This feed isn’t on my computer. It’s on theirs .
Blackwire Collective hacked into Francesca’s tablet.