C25 Chapter Twenty-five

Mc woke up from a nap hearing the repeated sound of a ball bouncing on the hard floor outside. He'd always appreciated the presence of a lovely basketball court in the mansion, but this time, he wasn't so pleased being woken up from his nap. "Oh Shit!" He sat upright to rob his eyes a little, it had been a tough time trying to run the Milburn empire, his attention was always needed and he didn't appreciate being disturbed in the little free time he had.

"Who's that?" He asked himself, walking towards the window, opened to see who had been running around the court with a bouncy ball, "Oh wow!" he exclaimed to the sight of Emily with her sweaty body bouncing the ball around the court. He didn't know she played basketball and he didn't know she'd taken him seriously when he asked her to feel free "Emily, feel free to use my basketball court sometimes. It's cool to exercise, there's a lot of things you could do outside the kitchen." He said to her a week ago.

"Wow, she does play the game." He didn't feel sleepy anymore, he just smiled rushing to put on his basketball jersey, “Well, let's play then. He said to himself.

Everything changed when Mc was in charge, there was freedom even among the lowest class of people in the mansion, the things that used to be a big deal weren't so big anymore, like a maid using the masters basketball court.

"Nice moves." Mc said, approaching the court in his black jersey and an extra ball in hand.

"I bet it's not as nice as yours." She smiled brightly, taking the compliment with good spirit.

"Oh I know how I move and I'm telling you, those moves right there, epic!"

"You're making me feel like a pro." She tried to cover her mouth with her palms while laughing, she wasn't used to compliments, just orders. But Mc seemed to be from a whole different planet.

"Pro? You're the queen of pros!" He passed her the ball he brought and she bounced it to make the basket from beyond the three-point arc.

"Wow!" Mc was genuinely impressed "you're gonna be the next Breanna Stewart." He rushed to get the ball.

"Nah when I go pro, I'll be known for who I am. I will be Emily Wilson."

"Wait a minute, you got plans of going pro?" He truly was interested.

"I've played all my life, I was the MVP in high school and the reigning champion in college." Mc bounced the ball and she tried to defend the net from him, he could feel her breathing heavily and the athletic sweat was just too sexy,

"I must say you're damn sexy with all this sweat." Mc with another compliment and she stopped to blush for a while leaving Mc to make the basket unguarded.

"Oh I see what you did there, you used a compliment to distract me."

"I wouldn't say no to that, but what I said is true."

"That's cheating." They both laughed.

"How about I help you go pro? You'd like that?"

"Are you serious right now? It's my final year in college and I've been thinking about that. But..."

"But what? I can put in some work for you, I can even be your agent." He was joking about the agent part.

"You? My agent? You're already too busy with a lot of responsibilities. You know sometimes I wonder how you're able to cope with all these." Her voice was filled with concern, Mc stopped bouncing the ball and stood still holding it between his two palms.

She approached him looking at the ball in his palms, noticing the change in his mood, "what's wrong?"

"Well a lot of people are right, I might not be able to handle things the way my father did. It's a lot of work and my head constantly feels heavy."

"I know that feeling, the stress."

"The stress, Emily. And now it's worse because I hired a teenager and the people think I'm stupid.”

“You were just following your instincts, you're a guy who believes in giving people a chance. That's what makes you special.”

“Thanks Emily.”

"Ha! I know what to do, I'll make you some special coffee every morning and every night before you go to bed."

"That's enticing. What makes this one special?"

"I'll put a secret ingredient that my mum taught me, it'll help you with the stress."

"That's fishy."

"Don't worry it's not a love portion." They both laugh and Mc controlled himself from putting a hand on her soft sweaty shoulders.

"You don't need a love portion to get me."

"Oh!"

"Oh yeah, cos you already rock my world."

"Stop stealing lines from MJ."

"Ha ha you got me, I guess I have to sit down and think of better lines to charm you." He jokingly said, they both didn't understand how they got to be so free with each other, they were just glad it was happening.

"You don't need lines, your eyes already did all the work."

Just before Mc could say a word, a man from the security team arrived in black suit, "Sir, a call from Miriam, she says it's urgent." He rushed to take the phone stretched to him "Yeah Miriam." He spoke.

"Mc we have a problem, someone got into our systems, the Howdy App, it's been hacked!"

"Oh Shit!"

*****

In the dimly lit headquarters of the Howdy App, a sense of urgency filled the air as the hacking incident unfolded. This was the first major attack since the death of Ethan Milburn and it wasn't going to look good on the news headlines.

The room, adorned with futuristic screens and blinking LEDs, buzzed with the low hum of servers. Miriam squinted at her monitor with her fingers dancing across the keyboard. She wasn't just good at seducing her boss Mc, she was good at her job also.

Her sweat was filled with frustration. "I can't trace the origin of the attack. It's like they're one step ahead." She slapped her forehead turning to look at Christian and Jimmy who were both IT specialists on her team.

"We need to isolate the compromised servers. Jimmy, any luck on that front?" Christian said, all eyes still fixed on the screen.

"It's intricate. They've masked their entry points well. Give me a few more minutes." Jimmy moved his fingers on the keyboard furiously.

As tension mounted, Matt, the team's ethical hacker who was hired less than a month ago piped up from his corner, surrounded by multiple screens displaying lines of code.

The tension in the room went down as he finally gave a positive feedback "Guys, I found a backdoor! It's exploiting a vulnerability in our authentication system." Miriam was quick to reply "Patch it, Matt. Patch that shit up! We can't afford any more breaches."

Just then Mc rushed in "I heard the bad news, tell me Miriam "What's the status?"

"We're on it, Mr. Mc. Matt found a backdoor. We're closing in on the breach." She said not looking at him.

Mc walked closer to look at the screen of her monitor "Oh God!" He said and the room fell silent, punctuated only by the rhythmic typing of Matt and the rest of the team. To Matt, this was an opportunity to prove to everyone that he was what Mc believed him to be. Everyone else didn't want him to get hired, "he's too young, he's not good enough." they said. But Mc believed in him, hiring him to be the youngest member of the team, an 18 year old hacker.

As the seconds ticked away, Matt finally cracked a smile. "Backdoor sealed. But we need to beef up our security protocols. This was sophisticated." The teenager said.

Miriam with relief, looked at Mc then turned to young Matt, "Agreed. We can't let this happen again. Let's run a post-mortem analysis and strengthen our defences."

Mc walked to Matt's seat, stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder "You're really who I think you are Matt, believe me, you were meant for big things."

"Thanks Boss." Matt said with a smile.

Mc walked out the room taking a deep breath, he was finally relieved and tried to loosen up the tie as he headed to his new Tesla car.

One hand on the car door and he received a phone call from an unknown person.

"Who's this? He asked, opening the car door.

"The most important question is, what do I want?"

"Oh boy." He knew this wasn't going to be a friendly call.

"What do you want? Stranger!"

"You know, it's only normal that these kinds of things happen to rich people like you, Billionaire's."

"You gonna cut to the cheese or you'll keep making the long intro?"

"I see you're the quick kinda guy. I love that. You see, I've been thinking about ways to get a huge amount of money off you, I look at your life and then I thought I'd kidnap someone close to you. That sounds interesting?"

"What have you done?" Mc's heart skipped a beat. He just lost his father less than a year ago, he had no family so who was this person talking about? He wondered.

"I ran checks on you, no mother, no father. I thought about kidnapping your ex wife, but you don't care about her like before. I thought about your best friend Michael but that dude's just too smart, and then I discovered someone new in your life, a new girl you've fallen in love with."

"Oh My God!"

"Oh yeah that's what I thought. Emily! I've got her right here. And I don't need much money."

"You better not hurt her, you hear me? You better not lay a finger on her!"

"You're in no position to make threats my friend. $200,000,000 that's what I need! I give you a week to get the money ready. I know you have it, just sign some papers and get it ready."

Mc didn't say a word, he was lost in thoughts about who could've been behind it, he forgot everything around him for a few seconds before he was shocked by the final words.

"I don't get the money, she dies!"