The Ghost Hacker's Ride
Chapter 1
GHOST
The blue glow of six monitors was the only light in the basement room. My sanctuary.
I leaned closer to the center screen, eyes narrowing as I scrolled through the Instagram feed that had triggered one of my digital tripwires.
"Fuck," I muttered, reaching for the energy drink positioned precisely where it always was—exactly three inches from my keyboard's right edge.
The post showed Thunder with his arm slung around Melody, her face turned up to his, laughing. Light captured in the moment, happiness frozen in pixels. Around them were brothers, old ladies, and the interior of the clubhouse's main room. Glasses raised, celebrating the engagement. Normal shit.
Except there was nothing normal about our club's inner sanctum being broadcast to—I clicked through to the profile stats—fourteen-thousand-fucking-seven-hundred followers.
I ran a hand through my dark hair, which hadn't seen the business end of scissors in months, and expanded the profile. @DaisysDailyLife. Her bio read: "Finding beauty in the everyday. Riverdale native sharing rural life, hidden gems, and authentic moments. ? Bringing sunshine to your feed daily! ?"
"Christ," I muttered, clicking through her other recent posts.
Sunshine wasn't what the Broken Throttle MC needed right now.
Not when we'd barely established truces with rival clubs after the bloodshed of the past year.
Not when we still had enemies looking for any weakness, any in.
Not when I'd spent months scrubbing our digital footprint, building firewalls between our legitimate businesses and club activities.
I pulled up four more screens—traffic cameras, social media connections, background data, location services. My fingers moved instinctively, building a digital profile of Daisy Fletcher while my brain processed threat assessments.
Twenty-six years old. Marketing degree from state college. Returned to Riverdale three years ago. Built influencer presence focusing on rural lifestyle content. Connection to club: friend of a friend of Sophie's from high school.
No obvious red flags. No connections to rival clubs. No law enforcement ties.
But that didn't mean shit. Information was currency, and she'd just spent ours without permission.
I tapped my comm. "Steel. We got a situation."
"Life or death?" Steel's voice came back, gravelly and low.
"Digital breach. Civilian." My words were clipped, efficient. "Photos from Thunder's engagement party all over social. Interior shots, faces, patches. Posted by some influencer."
The silence told me that Steel was weighing implications against actions. I waited, gulping the last of my energy drink, already plotting containment strategies.
"Your assessment?" Steel finally asked.
"Unknown if deliberate or collateral. Need to shut it down, scrub the content, establish containment protocols." I clicked through more of Daisy's feed, noting the steady increase in her engagement metrics. "She's got reach. Growing audience."
Another pause. Then Steel's voice, thoughtful rather than alarmed. "Handle it. No heavy hand unless necessary."
"Copy."
I disconnected and pulled up my surveillance dashboard.
The clubhouse security system I'd personally designed and installed gave me access to every camera in a two-mile radius.
Thirty minutes of backtracking footage showed me what I needed—a vintage blue Jeep Cherokee leaving the lot the previous night, driver's license plate crystal clear under my enhanced imaging.
Address acquired, I closed my eyes for a moment. People. Conversations. Confrontations. All the shit I avoided by staying in my digital world. But club security wasn't just servers and software; sometimes it required physical presence.
With a deep breath, I shut down external monitors, leaving only my main security dashboard active.
I reached for the black hoodie always draped over my chair, shrugging it on over my worn Henley.
Jeans, motorcycle boots, and my cut completed the transformation from digital ghost to physical presence.
My Glock went into my shoulder holster—a precaution I never skipped. The knife slid into my boot. Phone checked, comms tested. The routine settled me, pushing back the anxiety that always rose when I had to step away from my screens and into the world of unpredictable humans.
The clubhouse was quiet as I made my way upstairs. Nearly noon, most brothers either at the garage, the tattoo shop, or sleeping off the previous night. Only Wrench looked up from where he was tinkering with something mechanical at the bar.
"You're emerging from the cave? Must be the apocalypse," Wrench grinned, wiping grease from his hands.
I didn't smile back. "Security breach. Handling it."
Wrench's expression shifted, instantly alert. "Need backup?"
"Civilian. Female. Just needs education on club privacy." I headed for the door. "Comms on if that changes."
The midday sun hit me like a physical assault after hours in my darkened tech sanctuary. I slid sunglasses on, scanning the lot automatically for anything out of place. Force of habit. Life lessons learned hard.
My matte black Ducati waited in its usual spot, away from the row of Harleys preferred by most brothers. Sleek, fast, anonymous—the bike suited me. I straddled it, the engine's quiet purr a counterpoint to the thunderous rumble favored by the rest of Broken Throttle.
As I navigated through town toward the address I'd pulled, my mind categorized and processed. Daisy Fletcher represented everything I distrusted—social media exposure, performative sharing, the deliberate construction of a public self. Her sunshine persona was likely as fake as most things online.
The apartment complex appeared ahead—redbrick, two stories, about as generic as it got in Riverdale. I parked, noting security cameras (outdated, easily bypassed), entry points, and exit routes automatically.
Apartment 2B. I took the stairs rather than the elevator, another ingrained security habit. Outside her door, I paused, centering myself for the unpleasant necessity of human interaction.
For the club. For security. For the brothers who'd given me the one thing my life had lacked before Broken Throttle—belonging.
I knocked.