Hacking his code beguili.., p.1
Hacking His Code (Beguiling a Billionaire Book 7), page 1
Hacking His Code
Lark Anderson
Contents
Title
Also By Lark Anderson
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Arinessa
Hunter
Chapter 2
Arinessa
Hunter
Chapter 3
Arinessa
Chapter 4
Arinessa
Chapter 5
Hunter
Chapter 6
Arinessa
Hunter
Arinessa
Chapter 7
Hunter
Chapter 8
Arinessa
Chapter 9
Hunter
Chapter 10
Arinessa
Chapter 11
Hunter
Chapter 12
Arinessa
Hunter
Chapter 13
Arinessa
Chapter 14
Hunter
Chapter 15
Arinessa
Chapter 16
Arinessa
Chapter 17
Hunter
Chapter 18
Arinessa
Chapter 19
Hunter
Arinessa
Chapter 20
Arinessa
Chapter 21
Hunter
Chapter 22
Arinessa
Chapter 23
Hunter
Chapter 24
Arinessa
Chapter 25
Arinessa
Chapter 26
Hunter
Arinessa
Chapter 27
Hunter
Chapter 28
Arinessa
Chapter 29
Hunter
Arinessa
Chapter 30
Hunter
Hunter
Hunter
Chapter 31
Hunter
Arinessa
Chapter 32
Hunter
Arinessa
Hunter
Chapter 33
Arinessa
Chapter 34
Arinessa
Hunter
Chapter 35
Arinessa
Arinessa
Epilogue
Other Books by Lark Anderson
Reviews & Arcs
About the Author – Lark
36. A SNEAK PEEK:
Jenna
Hacking His Code
Copyright © 2021 by Lark Anderson
All rights reserved.
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Lark Letter Press
131 Daniel Webster Hwy #166
Nashua, NH 03060
www.larkandersonbooks.net
mims@mimsthewords.com
Edited by; Natasha Davis
* * *
No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission request, write to the publisher, addressed, “Attention: Permission Coordinator,” at the address above.
* * *
ISBN: 978-1-953191-04-5
eISBN: 978-1-953191-03-8
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Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictionally. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination. The following story contains mature content and is intended for mature readers.
Also By Lark Anderson
The Beguiling a Billionaire Series
The Billionaire’s Board
The Billionaire’s Fixer Upper
The Billionaire’s Funding
The Bad Girl
The Dis-Graced
The Trainwreck
Hacking His Code
* * *
Reckless in Love
Love you…not!
Trust you…not!
Tempt you…not!
* * *
Savage in Love
Savage in the Sheets
Savage in the Sweets(coming soon!)
* * *
The Glow Girlz Series
Stacey's Seduction
Tempting Teysa
Desiree's Delight
* * *
Click HERE for a free ebook!!!
If you'd like to become an ARC reviewer for Lark, please email her at: mims@mimsthewords.com. If you would like to subscribe to Lark's newsletter, please sign up here.
Author’s Note
Hello, Friend!
What a wild ride this book has been! I hope you love it!
As with the others in the series, Hacking His Code is a standalone romantic comedy set in the bigger Beguiling a Billionaire world. You can read Hacking without having read the previous six!
But… there are overlapping characters. You'll see Gabriel, Remi, Cassius, and a few lovable others in Hacking that have already been seen in the series.
I hope you fall in love with Arinessa and Hunter, just like I did. And trust me, there's a lot of love cooking in this book. So much love.
Okay, I'm going to stop my babbling now so you can get to the good stuff.
* * *
Yours in Adventure,
* * *
Lark
Arinessa
Buzzzz…
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Buzzz…
You can do this.
Buzzzz…
Pick up the phone!!!
“Hello, Ari here!” I chirp into the receiver.
“Arinessa Sylvan, this is Angela calling from—”
“It’s okay, I know what you want—that perfect bikini body that will have men drooling and all the women jealous—”
“No!”
“Oh, forgive me. You must be interested in my new goodie box, Makeover Moods—”
“Arinessa, I’m from the university, but I suspect you already know that—”
I inject a sultry inflection into my voice. “What are you wearing, Angela?”
“You have five days—”
“Because for just one-hundred-and-twenty dollars, you could be strutting around campus in some Super Sage leggings as you drink your ImPressed coffee.”
“—to come up with your tuition before you are dis-enrolled from the…ehhh…Bachelors of Science in Computers program.”
Fuck me…
I gather my courage, knowing it’s time to let real-life take center stage, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
“I know, and I’m trying.”
“Against better judgment, you were given an extension—”
“I can’t get any more loans! God knows I’ve tried.”
“I supposed that means you’ll be disenrolling?”
Panic takes hold as I desperately try to come up with a way to keep myself afloat. I can’t stop now, not when I’m so close to achieving my goal. Not when my mother has so little time left.
“I’ll do anything—please! Any odd job no one else wants on campus if it will give me a tuition break. I’ll tutor. I’m literally the best student this campus has ever had—ask my instructors. I’ll scrub the damn toilets—the septic tank if I have to.”
“I am aware of your gifts, it’s one of the reasons we’ve been so lenient, but that doesn’t mean we can overlook your tuition shortage indefinitely.”
“It’s ridiculous—especially with how easy the football players have it.”
“Football revenue is high—”
“Look, I’m the first person in my family to attend a university—to even enroll in college. I have to finish this, because if I don’t…if I don’t…”
I don’t want to think about my mother, weak in bed, completely oblivious to my plight. I promised I’d get my degree before she passed—her dying wish, but at the time I made that promise, I didn’t know how complicated my life was about to get.
Father left shortly after Mother’s terminal diagnosis, finding a trailer trash girlfriend with a young son and a drinking problem. What little money Mom took from the divorce went towards her treatment. Of course, she insisted that was silly. Why waste our resources on her when I had tuition to pay? So I lied and told her I had a full-ride scholarship.
Then, things got worse. She couldn’t afford the apartment we’d lived in for eighteen years, so I had to find another. I went apartment hunting and moved into a one-bedroom just last week. She’s set to move in next month.
She couldn’t even afford to die in the place she had called home for more than half her life.
It’s so unfair.
Now, I’m drowning in debt with destroyed credit and little hope that I’ll ever climb my way out of this monstrous black hole I’ve dug for myself. But I have to get that degree.
For her.
“I’ll call back in a few days,” Angela says, irritated. “Take care.”
I exhale a ragged breath as I try to formulate a plan. How do I stay in school with no money, terrible credit, and a mountain of debt?
Of course, there are the obvious answers. Stripping would bring in some easy cash, but unfortunately, I came to that conclusion rather late, and there’s no way I can manage to bring in over twenty-thousand dollars in
I’ve been donating plasma for two years now, but they’ve recently cut reimbursement rates. I’d consider selling a kidney, but that’s illegal. I’ve even filled out an egg donation form, but so far, there have been no takers. I have no friends to beg for money because my ability to forge lasting friendships has greatly deteriorated under the stress load I’ve been shouldering.
My gaze travels over to my computer terminal. The one I haven’t touched in years.
You promised you’d never do that again.
That’s not entirely true, I reason. I promised I’d never hack a government system, but I never said anything about hacking private enterprises.
I know I’m just trying to logic myself into a bad decision—one I could go to jail for.
I exhale slowly, taking a seat at my desk—not my main one, the other one. The one that got me into so much trouble.
I shouldn’t have moved it over, but for some reason, I can’t part with it. It calls to me every now and then, and the pull has never been this strong.
I boot up the computer, and because it’s been six years since I last hit the power button, it’s slow, which only edges me closer to panic.
You’re breaking a promise.
I’m doomed to break one promise or another with the hole I’ve dug for myself, and if I’m careful, no one will ever find out.
I type into the mainframe until I find myself on the dark web.
Hello, old friend.
It doesn’t take long to familiarize myself with the screens. The ease at how I slip into my past self causes a caustic feeling of dread to bloom inside me.
Growing up, my family lived paycheck to paycheck, struggling to gain a foothold in the world. I was singled out and tested in grade school, and they determined that I was all kinds of smart. Because of my big brain, I got to go away to camps for free as well as attend expensive schools, all bills paid.
At fourteen, I was slipping in and out of places on the web I shouldn’t have been for fun. I didn’t know what I was doing was wrong until a teacher clued me in. I smiled, thanked her for the insight, and never crossed that line on school grounds again.
Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson. My new hobby was fun, exciting, and WAY too tempting for me to stay away from.
I got better, learning new skills, and I joined chats with people who shared my interest.
That was a mistake.
If I had just gone on having fun, I wouldn’t have been caught, but real life took hold, forcing my eyes open.
One of the hackers I was acquainted with worked at a police department. He was frustrated because the stuff he found on who he called ‘the worst of the worst’ couldn’t lead to an arrest because of how it was acquired. At the time, I was fifteen, but they didn’t know that, and they posted things that burned into my brain, alerting me to the seedy underbelly of the world that I had only been vaguely aware of.
There was a network of traffickers that traded drugs…and other commodities. I was angry, at the police, at the world, at everyone.
I thought I was being smart, collecting evidence, bouncing signals, cleaning my trail, and delivering a cache of evidence that was anonymously sent to various agencies.
SPOILER ALERT: I got caught.
A huge investigation was conducted. They talked to my parents, my school, my teachers—everyone. It became a national headline. Since I was a minor, my name was never released, but I got expelled from school all the same, and a juvenile record to boot.
That was six years ago. I’m smarter now, and if I stay away from FBI and CIA hotspots, I could make good money doing low-level hacking. Rich women seeking a better divorce payout would pay well enough, and who knows, maybe I could squeeze a few jobs in over the next two days and make enough to at least get the university off my ass.
I scan forums for hours and set up a few shell accounts. I put together a list of potential clients ranging from an heiress who didn’t demand a prenup when she married her boy toy, to a twenty-one-year-old whose eight-five-year-old husband died and is now having to fight his family for her part of the estate.
A message pops onto my screen.
That’s weird.
* * *
Chicken Dinner: I need you to retrieve a jpeg file from a server and post it to a Chatter account. If you successfully complete the mission in thirty minutes, twenty-five-thousand dollars will be wired to you. Shall I send over the information?
* * *
I blink, trying to see if I’ve gone insane, and when I realize my eyes are working, I know it can only mean one thing.
Oh-my-GOD—I’ve been caught.
My first instinct is to press the power button and be done with hacking altogether, but I’m paralyzed, unable to move, unable to even breathe.
My brain attempts all kinds of logic until it finally reaches some state of reasonability.
I’ve done nothing wrong…yet.
Chicken Dinner is no police officer, and if the police were to hire me this way, they wouldn’t be able to charge me due to entrapment laws. Not only that, but I doubt the FBI spends their time monitoring my computer activity.
* * *
Chicken Dinner: Twenty-seven minutes and counting.
* * *
Shit!
This one hack could solve my big problem. I could complete the mission, get paid, forward the balance of my tuition to my school, and get my degree before my mom passes.
I have to risk it.
* * *
Ari: send the info
* * *
Less than a minute later, a clickable link pops up, and I download a file to my system.
The job is surprisingly easy, or at least it is for me. Some would consider it advanced. Five years ago, I could have done it in fifteen minutes flat. Now, I’m coming in at twenty-eight minutes with zero room for error.
Retrieving the image from the server wasn’t too hard, but hacking the Chatter account had me nervous for a minute.
My fingers fly over the keyboard, racing to get a ChitChat up to post in. The picture is surprisingly innocuous: two little girls, one behind a computer, the other dressed as a princess. They look identical.
