Sentenced to Marriage

Chapter 40

Helping him

Aren didn‘t question my decision. He only smirked and called Marcus, Thirty minutes later, we were in the car on our way to the airport, dressed in hurriedly chosen dry clothes.

“Here, wear this. Your hair is still damp.” Aren handed me a baseball cap.

“Thank you,” I replied with a faint smile.

Those little things that proved that he cared made my heart warm. I used to dream about lovers‘ connection that I read about in romance books; a naïve dream of a freshman taking her first step into the land of relationships. I ended up giving my all and receiving little to nothing in return. I wanted to protect my heart against Aren, but at the same time, I had a feeling that Aren appreciated me more than my asshole ex–boyfriend ever did. I kept wondering whether I could remove the romantic feelings from the equation and accept Aren‘s offer. Was it a matter of my immaturity to think that I could fall in love and be loved? Perhaps it was time for a calculated compromise. Perhaps it was safer that way. If you don‘t give your heart away, no one will break it, right?

As we were getting back to New York City, Aren was constantly on the phone. I wondered how many people had their Saturday night ruined because of his call. Fortunately for me, Alan and Norton used to spend their free time staring at the computer screens, which made me less guilty about asking for their help. I messaged both and they replied almost immediately. I knew that Norton had once written a cute little program that helped to analyze all the recently modified or copied files. He called it a “thief marker,” and that was what the program did. It worked like a special agent that went around the house, checking the missing or broken objects and securing the fingerprints. I would also need Alan‘s specially designed hacker tracker, which could help me find out who decided to mess with my contract fiancé…

I had to say that I loved the idea of helping Aren. My fingers were itching to place them on the keyboard. I knew that Aren‘s blood was boiling, and he was pissed that someone dared to steal something from

his company, but I couldn‘t help but be crazily excited about this whole situation.

“Don‘t worry,” I said confidently, placing my hand on top of Aren‘s. “You‘ve got a badass hacker on your side. Whoever broke into your company‘s system, I already feel sorry for him or her.”

Aren chuckled and then locked his eyes on me. “I‘ve chosen the perfect woman to become my fiancée.”

The corners of my lips curled in an uncontrolled smile as I softly admitted, “You surely have.”

Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the Lan Diamond Tower‘s parking lot. We got out of the car and walked to Aren‘s private elevator. I was armed with my newest laptop and ready to prove my super–skills. As we left the elevator on the top floor, a crowd of people surrounded Aren, pushing me against the wall. They all bowed to their boss apologetically, shifting the blame to each other and hectically explaining what had happened. The leader of the crowd was the loudest of them all. I guessed he was the director of the IT department. He had a well–made but terribly wrinkled grey suit and blue shirt and kept glancing at everyone with a frown

ses

through his black–rimmed glasses “I don‘t know how that happened, Mr. Lan; the computer was supposed to be completely cut off,” he said before pointing to a man with curly blond hair. “Nicholson was responsible —”

“Mr. Lan, I swear, I secured that entire area! There was no chance that—”

“Silence!” Aren roared. “Move out of my way,” he ordered, coldly stepping toward me. He grabbed my hand and pulled me close, causing a wave of gasps and murmurs. “Don‘t walk away from me,” he whispered to my ear.

“I didn‘t walk away, I was pushed,” I corrected, lowering my voice.

Aren shifted his eyes to the crowd, looking at them with a murderous glare. “Who dared to touch my fiancée?” The superficially composed tone of his voice was one of the scariest sounds I had ever heard in my life.

I couldn‘t tell whether the guy in black–rimmed glasses turned out to be exceptionally brave or stupid, but he stepped forward. “Mr. Lan, with all due respect, we are dealing with a crisis here. I don‘t think that this is the right time to pay attention to anyone‘s private matters,” he stated, arrogantly looking me up and down. I glanced at him curiously and then saw how Aren‘s lips formed an icy smirk. I gulped. “Mr. Ross, how long do you work for me?” he asked, his eyes darkening. “Seven years, Mr. Lan,” he replied proudly. “Have I ever mixed private and business matters during that time?” Aren‘s glower at Mr. Ross brought instant chills to my spine. “No...” the man replied, weakly.

“Mr. Ross, you are fired. You may leave.” Sharper than a blade, his words cut through the hall.

The command left no space to raise any argument. Mr. Ross‘s face turned paler than pale, with his eyes getting wider in shock. He opened his mouth but didn‘t make a sound. Well, if he was dumb enough to argue with his boss and disrespect his fiancée, he didn‘t deserve that job anyway.

“Move out of the way, Mr. Ross,” Aren hissed, curtly gesturing at him to let us through.

The man swayed against the wall. We walked past him, and the rest of the crowd followed without a word. As we walked through the corridor, I saw Neil. He greeted Aren and me with a nod and pointed at the open door of the conference room. Aren walked inside, pulling me after him. As he sat by the table‘s main seat, I was told to sit on his right side. Soon, the room filled with the people from the corridor, and Neil entered as the last one and closed the door.

“Gentlemen,“— Neil turned to the people in the room, before shifting his eyes on me — “and a lady… please put all of your electronic devices on the table. May I also inform you that there are jamming signal devices in this room, just in case anyone would like to transmit any information outside...”

The meeting continued after everyone gave away their laptops, phones, and smartwatches. One of the IT specialists reported that he discovered a faint anomaly in the system and ran a security check. Once he did, he discovered that a few computers from the planning department

were turned online even when there was no one working there on a Saturday.

“Were those computers usually connected to the internet?” I asked the man who reported.

Everyone looked at me as if I was talking in Sumerian and then turned their eyes to Aren,

My contract fiancé sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just answer the damn question,” he said coldly. “No,” the reporting man replied, “The entire planning department is strictly monitored, and the computer units are connected solely to their internal network.” Chills ran down my spine. I knew very well how a hacker could turn the force into an internet connection and get access to it. I had done it myself while helping Liam to devastate Aren‘s engagement party. What if someone used a worm just like the one I created? “Do you need special access to get into the planning department?” I asked, smugly crossing my arms over my chest. Aren smirked at me, then gestured at the gathered people to give me an answer.

“Yes. No stranger entered the department throughout the whole week,” a tall, bulky, brown skinned guy said.

He didn‘t look like an IT specialist at all. His fierce posture reminded me of Cliff, the asshole bodyguard who got fired because he bruised my wrist. I gazed at Aren, question marks in my eyes.

Aren chuckled. “That‘s Mr. Ronald Clark, head of the security department,” he introduced the man who had just replied.

I nodded nervously and cleared my throat. I suddenly started to think that he and Cliff must have known each other. I wondered if Mr. Clark knew that one of his subordinates got fired because of me… I took a deep breath, shutting my anxieties away. “Are you certain that there were no special guests in the

planning department and the ones that touched the computers were employees that had access passes?” I inquired. ,“I‘m absolutely positive.” He nodded.

As I confirmed what I needed to know, there was no sense in hiding the obvious fact. I smiled wryly and looked at Aren. “It looks like you‘ve got a mole in your company.”

Looking for a thief

The commotion filled the entire room. People looked at me as if I was some kind of witch, casting a spell over their innocent souls.

“I disagree!” the IT specialist who reported the situation exclaimed. “Someone definitely attacked our system from the outside! If the files were copied or deleted during work hours, we would have noticed it almost immediately! It couldn‘t be an inside job!”

His sudden agitation startled me. He was all tense, glaring at me with his grey deep–set eyes while nervously combing his ginger hair with his fingers. I wondered if I accidentally stepped on his ego... “Yes, Davies is right!” A young man sitting next to him patted his shoulder in encouragement. I sighed, exhaling my growing annoyance, and glanced at Aren. My husband–to–be looked back at me with a hint of a smirk, urging me to prove my point. “I never said that the files were stolen by someone while he or she was in the company, but the hacker needed an accomplice, someone who put a bug into the system,” I explained. “We‘d checked the system twice and found no spyware. That means no, your assumptions are incorrect.” That Davies guy was getting on my nerves. I stretched my lips into a thin smile. “Do you want to bet?” “All right,” Aren cut in. “I‘d like to put Ms. Bell‘s theory to the test, so give her whatever access she requests.”

The ginger–haired IT specialist clearly wasn‘t fond of that idea. “Mr. Lan, we are already working on it ourselves. There is no need to add another—”

“Show me your results.” Aren‘s strict command made everyone turn silent. “You haven‘t found the hacker and you have yet to confirm the number of stolen projects. This is a time sensitive issue. I‘m giving you a specialist who can speed up the process. You can either obey or look for another job.”

After Aren‘s words spread like a dark aura across the room, I didn‘t expect to make many new friends with the people sitting in that room. A few minutes later, I was led to the planning department to have a look at those allegedly hacked computers. Of course, dear Mr. Davies didn‘t hide his hostility toward me. His attitude was obvious in his every reluctance–soaked gesture. I only wondered if he acted the way he did because I was an outsider, or because I was a woman… and an outsider.

“Ms. Bell, take a look at the units on the left. I‘ve already checked the main ones, so there‘s no need to–”

“I will start with the main ones,” I claimed firmly. Davies clenched his teeth. “As I said, there is no need to–”

“Mr. Lan told you to give me full access, didn‘t he?” I smirked, quite satisfied with the given authority.

“Do whatever you want,” he grumbled lowly, tossing the password list onto the table in front of me

“Thank you, that‘s very kind of you.” I deliberately smiled, enticing his irritation.

He turned out to be wise enough to walk away and didn‘t bother me as I started to look for any traces of the bug. I used Norton‘s program to make a list of recently modified files. It didn‘t look good. Several projects marked as highly classified were copied less than three hours ago. There were some hardware designs and two gaming apps that had just entered their beta phase. The hacker who broke into the system was good; he tried to fake the system‘s indexes so that no one could guess which files he copied. No wonder Davies didn‘t find anything concrete... The one who broke in turned out every light before leaving the system, which forced those poor IT specialists to search blindly in the dark. This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

Having the complete list of stolen files, I emailed Neil so they could start handling the crisis and control the damage. As soon as I pressed the “send” button, I could begin the second phase of my search...

Once I had already known what was stolen, it was time to find out how it was done. My best thesis was still the one that considered placing a worm, but I had already known that the one who had broken into the system wouldn‘t be dumb enough to leave the worm alive in the

would have deleted it just like I had erased all the traces of the spyware I had installed in Blue Crystal Hotel‘s system. If the intruder was as good as me, I had mere chances of finding anything, but I hoped this wasn‘t the case.

It took me a few hours of searching using different algorithms until I could finally grin and exclaim, “Gotcha!”