51. Ciel
CIEL
“Okay, baby girl, I think we’re ready.”
I’d been programming and testing this virus in my sandbox system for days.
Everything had to work perfectly, so I took my time refining while the rest of the family dealt with the Camorra and the feds as best they could.
It had been almost two weeks since the Bronx, and the gala was in two days. We needed all of this set and ready.
My virus was essentially ransomware. Once it penetrated an exposed network, it would lock it all down until I entered the correct sequence of passwords.
Unless Lucia had a specialized code-breaker, it would be almost impossible for her to unlock it—effectively allowing us to demand a ransom from her until she complied.
Leona sat beside me at my computer, with her secondary system set up and running. She’d spent the morning locking down all our networks, just in case something went wrong. She let out a sigh. “All right. Let’s do this.”
I pressed the Enter key.
Lines of code started cascading in front of our eyes. “Whew. There it goes.”
It should only take a few minutes to follow the breadcrumbs Lucia left behind and sink its fangs into her systems like a venomous snake.
Once it breached her security, it would brick everything.
She wouldn’t be able to type a single keystroke.
A message would pop up on her screen, similar to the one from a popular movie from the 90s that joked Ah, ah, ah!
You didn’t say the magic words! That was Leona’s idea.
Lucia would know it was us.
Wynn and Obi opened the door to our room and walked inside. Obi ducked his head to kiss Leona while Wynn did the same to me.
“Did you send it yet?” Wynn asked.
“Just did.” I gestured to the code flying across the screen in my multiple terminal windows. No errors returned so far. “The virus has found her vulnerabilities. It’s currently trying to breach them.”
This was my favorite part of the whole thing.
I got the idea from analyzing Lucia’s attack a few weeks ago.
My virus was relentless. It transformed and adapted, exposing hole after hole in her security protocols.
I watched it change course while she tried to fight off the attack, but I’d made it lightning fast. It would spread like a multiplying pathogen, and she would be unable to keep up.
I glanced at Leona’s phone on our desk.
“Any second now.” I massaged my palm. My eyes were dry and my limbs felt heavy with exhaustion, but it would all be worth it when that phone rang.
The screen lit up with an unknown number.
“Bingo,” Leona said, grinning. She tapped the accept call button and put it on speakerphone. “Pronto?”
A string of Italian curses exploded from the device.
I put my hand over my mouth so she wouldn’t hear me laughing. It fucking worked.
“What the fuck have you done to my systems?” Lucia demanded.
The code in my terminal window slowed until it displayed a single message.
Access granted.
I smiled. “They’re mine now.”
“Cazzo! Vaffanculo!” Angry click-clacks echoed in the background while she furiously tried to type, but she wouldn’t get anywhere. That virus was probably the strongest fucking malware on the planet. She would not access it unless I gave her permission.
Her systems were now my systems.
The line went quiet. My eyes flicked down to the phone, but she hadn’t hung up. She’d just gone silent.
“What do you want?” Her voice was clipped, her accent heavier than normal. “How much money?”
Leona shook her head. “This isn’t a typical ransom. We don’t want money. We want cooperation.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ciel has access to everything you have stored on your network. It’s all ours. We’re going to go through every single file.”
“Merda,” she hissed. “This is my entire life. You cannot take it from me. Give it back!”
“No, sorry,” Leona said. “But we’ll give it back if you help us.”
“With what?” Lucia spat.
Asking Lucia to do this was a colossal risk, but the alternative for her was losing every piece of electronic data she had ever had. I was betting on her agreement. I gave Leona a nod.
“First, you will stop protecting your grandfather from our attempts to track him. With our access to your systems, you won’t have much control over that anyway, but just in case.
If you have any secondary systems or networks which protect him from us, we’ll wipe everything.
We’ll destroy it all. You won’t be able to hide. Ciel will find out.”
She grunted. “What else?”
Leona let out a quiet breath. “You will kill all of Greco’s heirs.”
“What?” Lucia breathed. “You’d have me kill my cousins and uncles?”
“Yes,” Leona said. “You already know that if we were to kill your grandfather, the rest of your family will not rest until they get revenge. You will eliminate that problem for us before it exists.”
“And what about me?” Lucia gritted out. “You’ll then have me take my own life?”
“No,” I said. “You may live, and I will give you access back to all of your systems.”
Lucia’s heavy breathing crackled through the phone line while she considered. She cursed again in Italian, arguing with herself.
“Basta!” she finally said. “Fine. Yes. I will do this.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You agree that easily?” Leona asked.
“Don’t you care about your grandfather?” I added.
“I don’t fucking care about my grandfather!” she spat. “I care about my computers! My mother is gone. I have nothing else.”
Leona looked backward at Obi, eyes wide. “You’re part of the largest criminal organization in the world, one that your own family operates. Forgive me if I am having a hard time believing you’ll come through for us.”
“The Camorra is no family of mine,” she replied harshly.
My chair creaked as I leaned forward. “Why?”
“I do what I am asked to do,” she responded.
“I do what the Family requires of me. It is a vicious and demanding organization. Besides that, all I want is my privacy and my work. It’s not my fault I was born into this, and the only way I could get permission to learn was if I agreed to help my family.
I will do whatever it takes to keep the one thing I’ve ever wanted in this life. ”
“Fair enough,” Leona responded after a pause. “As soon as it’s done, Ciel will give you the password.”
“It goes without saying that you will not tell Greco about this,” I warned. “I will wipe everything if you do.”
“I won’t,” she said quietly, like the fight had deflated out of her. Then she seemed to regain some of her edge. “Give me your orders and I’ll get them done.”
“Sit quietly until we call on you,” Leona said. “You’ll wait patiently until then.”
“Fine.”
Leona hung up without another word.
I cracked my knuckles in front of me while I grinned. “Well, that worked better than expected.”
She threw her arms around my neck. “I knew it would.”
Obi nodded his approval. “Good work, Ciel. This saves us from traveling to Italy to finish it ourselves.”
“Assuming she follows through,” Wynn said while he pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Nice job, love.”
“She will,” I said confidently. Despite being on opposite sides of this war, a small part of me understood Lucia’s desperation for her computers.
We had different circumstances and different reasons, but I’d been in a place before where I relied entirely on the electronics in front of me to make me feel worthy of living. Lucia had to be in a similar place.
“Her family doesn’t sound that great,” Leona said. “Maybe she’ll be doing herself a favor.”
Obi cupped the back of her head. “She is likely as trapped there as I was. I’ve met Greco’s sons and other heirs before.
They are entitled and ruthless men. They live and act as if their power gives them a free pass to do whatever they want with no consequences.
Now that her mother—Greco’s only daughter—is dead, Lucia is the only girl. She will do the world a favor.”
Assuming she follows through, I thought, echoing Wynn from earlier. We’d just have to wait and find out.