1. Robin #3
My parents thought I was ‘good with computers.’ Which was technically true in the same way calling a shark ‘good at swimming’ was technically true.
I carried the dishes into the kitchen, kissed my mother on the cheek while she pulled brownies out of the oven, then headed toward Dad’s office.
I dropped into his desk chair and woke the laptop with a tap.
On his desk sat a picture of me sleeping on his chest as a baby, next to one of him and my mother on their wedding day.
He always was a bit of a softy when it came to me and my mother.
Within thirty seconds I found the culprit.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“You clicked on a fake PDF.”
From the kitchen he yelled back, “It looked official!”
“It literally says HOT_SINGLES_FINAL_FINAL.”
“I thought it was tax forms!”
I laughed under my breath and started cleaning out the malware. Honestly, it wasn’t even bad. Mildly embarrassing, but fixable.
While a scan ran, I clicked through his desktop folders looking for anything else suspicious.
Then one folder caught my eye.
ASCENSION FELLOWSHIP.zip.
I stilled. A hot pulse of irritation rolled through me immediately.
Mom had mentioned the fundraiser tonight, but seeing the church sitting there on his computer, organized neatly beside local nonprofits and small businesses, made something sharp twist in my chest.
I clicked the folder before I could think better of it.
Spreadsheets opened across the screen. Donation breakdowns. Operating budgets. Vendor payments. Large transfer summaries.
I frowned slightly.
Dad stepped into the doorway behind me holding a brownie plate. “Find the problem?”
“Yep.” Adjusting the screen of the laptop so he couldn’t see what I was looking at.
“Am I being hacked by Russians?”
“Worse. You’re being hacked by your own inability to identify obvious scams.”
He handed me a brownie. “Cruel.”
I took it absently, eyes still scanning the files. My gaze drifted lower through the documents. Revenue reports. Event costs. Donation inflow.
Big numbers. Bigger than I expected.
And suddenly a thought slipped into my brain so smoothly it honestly felt inevitable.
Lantern House was constantly struggling to stay afloat.
Ascension Fellowship spent more money on stage production than the shelter probably saw in a year.
My jaw tightened. That wasn’t right. Dad wandered back toward the kitchen while I sat there staring at the screen, my pulse ticking slightly faster now.
It would be too easy. The realization settled into me slow and electric.
I knew systems. I knew accounting. And unlike most people, I knew exactly how money disappeared when people weren’t paying attention.
My fingers rested on the keyboard for one long second.
I reached around his desk until I found a cord, then quietly plugged my phone in. I copied the Ascension files into an encrypted folder and sent them to myself while the malware scan finished running in the background.
My heartbeat thudded steadily the entire time.
A few minutes later, I closed everything neatly, deleted the transfer history, finished fixing Dad’s computer, and leaned back in the chair like absolutely nothing had happened.
By the time I got home, rain hammered steadily against my apartment windows. Most nights, I would’ve changed into pajamas, booted up a game, and spent three hours terrorizing strangers online while pretending I wasn’t avoiding folding laundry.
Tonight was different.
Well, except for the laundry avoidance.
I dropped my keys onto the counter and headed straight for my office.
Okay. ‘Office,’ was generous. It was technically the second bedroom of my apartment, but I’d converted it into a glorious gamer cave with enough technology to concern the federal government.
Two massive monitors glowed across my desk beside mechanical keyboards, gaming controllers, tangled charging cords, and enough LED lighting to make my mother sigh about ‘ambiance.’ My custom-built PC hummed softly as I slid into the chair.
Usually, this setup was for gaming.
Tonight it was for crime… Allegedly.
I cracked my knuckles once and pulled up the files from Dad’s computer.
Ascension Fellowship.
Even their financial structure irritated me. Everything was polished, categorized, and sanitized. Millions flowing through carefully branded departments with names like Outreach Expansion Initiative and Kingdom Growth Fund.
Jesus would’ve flipped tables.
I leaned back slightly, scanning security protocols while rain rattled softly against the windows.
Getting into their system honestly wasn’t even difficult, which offended me on principle. For a church obsessed with spiritual warfare, their cybersecurity was embarrassingly weak.
Thirty minutes later, I sat inside Ascension’s internal financial portal sipping a Coke Zero, while their quarterly donation reports glowed across my screens.
I shouldn’t have felt this calm about it, but I did.
Because the more I looked through the numbers, the angrier I got.
There were production costs that could fund entire community programs. There were massive salaries, private travel expenses buried beneath vague wording.
Thousands of dollars had been poured into aesthetics while places like Lantern House fought to keep the lights on.
My jaw tightened.
The church created this problem. The church could help fix it. Simple.
I opened a new transfer authorization screen. It was nothing huge, nothing noticeable to the amount of money passing through the church. But it was more than enough to matter to a shelter constantly surviving on scraps.
My fingers moved quickly across the keyboard. I set up a monthly recurring donation to Lantern House.
I paused briefly before changing the description field.
GOOD SAMARITAN MISSION
A laugh escaped me softly. That felt appropriately biblical.
I rerouted the transaction carefully through multiple internal budget pathways, burying it beneath existing outreach distributions and automated charitable reporting.
It was clean, small, and most importantly, easy to overlook unless someone knew exactly where to look.
Which they wouldn’t, because people rarely questioned money leaving churches when it sounded righteous enough.
I hovered over the final confirmation button for half a second.
This was insane, and most definitely illegal.
But all I could think about was Ariel trying to smile while talking about Lantern House stretching resources. I thought about Lila sitting on those back porch steps years ago pretending she wasn’t terrified.
The righteous rage I felt at churches building million-dollar stages while queer kids slept in shelters burned.
My expression hardened. “Congratulations,” I muttered to the screen. “You’re doing real charity now.”
Then I hit confirm.
The transfer was processed instantly.
For one long beat, I just stared at the screen while adrenaline surged through me at the thought of what I’d just done.
Holy shit. A slow grin spread across my face before I could stop it.
Oh.
This was either going to ruin my life or become my new favorite hobby.