Page 6 of Empowered

After loading the home screen, I accessed the page with all Shyam’s clients. Account information for all their distributors were listed, including dates of past shipments, bank account information and contact information, and dates of their next shipments. It was surprising how much drug-dealing sales logs resembled regular online shopping logs. All these dealers needed was an online shopping cart and a website and they’d be set up for home delivery.

A ringing sound echoed through the otherwise silent room, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Tarun removed his hand from my skin to pull out a phone from his pocket. I noticed it was an old-fashioned flip phone. He really was such a strange character. It was like he didn’t trust technology, yet he had access to the best of it like Shyam and Jai. Maybe he just didn’t want to use a phone with Wi-Fi capability so no one could keep tabs on him.Paranoid!

“I’m sorry, Miss Becker. You’ll have to excuse me. I have another matter to tend to. I trust you are comfortable enough to continue working in my absence?” His voice was overly considerate, which made me feel even more uneasy.

I nodded silently, hoping that I didn’t seem too eager for him to leave.

He barked a warning in what I assumed was Hindi to the guard, then whipped the tail of his jacket around and left the room. “Keep an eye on her and make sure she finishes the job,” he shouted in English.

His dual personalities were exhausting to keep up with. It was like he was playing the role of a fabulous host one minute, but he could turn maleficent in a matter of seconds. I never knew what personality I would be dealing with, so I preferred to stay silent to avoid pissing him off. My body couldn’t take any more abuse.

The guard looked at me with a menacing look, as if warning me not to try anything funny.

I turned back to the screen and started saving information to the flash drive. Guilt ate at me as I worked. It felt horrible to play a role in destroying Shyam and Jai’s business. They would be upset, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t let Tarun hurt my mother. They would understand why I did it. Hopefully, they could find a way to fix the damage I was about to cost them.

It took me a while to work through all the accounts. I looked over at the guard, who stood out of view of my monitor. He was intently watching something on his phone out of boredom.

I had a thought.What if I changed some of the shipping destinations?All the locations that were receiving shipments soon were either in North America or Europe. None of them were in India. India was Tarun’s territory, based on the contract his father had made with Shyam’s father. I could send Shyam breadcrumbs about where I was through the sales accounts. I had administrative rights to change anything listed on this page.

The only problem was, I didn’t know exactlywhereI was. I knew I was in Jaipur, in a fancy pink palace. Most of the buildings on the drive over here were pink anyways, though, so I guess that wasn’t a special detail.

I looked back over to the guard. He was still engrossed in whatever he was doing on his phone. Tarun would be angry if he ever found out how careless his guard was, butyousnooze, you lose.

They had to have Wi-Fi for the guard to have been watching something on his phone for this long, but I didn’t think Tarun would trust Wi-Fi enough, since it would use his location to transmit data about him. Jai would have figured out how to hack it by now.

I opened the web browser. A VPN, or virtual private network, login window popped up. Of course, he was using a VPN for internet! It allowed users to access the internet using encrypted data so that no hackers could see what the person was viewing on the internet. People often used it when they worked from home.

But I was stuck. I had no idea what his password was, and I didn’t have much time to figure it out. The guard would surely come over at any moment to hurry me up. I tried random phrases like “Tarun,” his brother’s name, “Vik,” and even Shyam and Jai’s names. No luck.

I knew it was a long shot to guess the password correctly. It could be anything. The possibilities were endless, and I had limited time.

My eyes strayed to a painting on the wall.A Bengal Tiger.Tarun’s family crest. These crests were important to Shyam and Tarun’s family histories.

I typed in “Tiger” out of curiosity.Access denied.Hastily, I tried “Bengal Tiger.”It worked!It was a bit surprising that his password was so simple and without any special characters or numbers, but regardless, I had access to the internet and maps.

I quickly researched names of businesses in Jaipur. I still couldn’t figure out my current location since Tarun had blocked GPS on his network to keep it secure. However, I was able to find names of businesses that made sweets, shoes, and anything else that I could use an address from to change the existing addresses for shipments on the accounts. These places would possibly be getting hefty, surprise packages of drugs, but I hoped Shyam would notice something was off before that ever happened. I was desperate.

I noticed the name of a Jaipur company that produced fabrics. It was called Mongoose Inc.

I recalled the conversation I had with Shyam when I first asked about the cobra on his ring. He had said that the one animal that could kill the deadly cobra was the mongoose. Now I was hoping he would remember that conversation too. I guessed I would soon find out.

I pulled the flash drive from the computer. I had done what Tarun asked of me, and he wouldn’t know that I had changed the addresses if I never saved my changes to the flash drive.

I changed the addresses to the random local business addresses that I had found, including Mongoose Inc. I used that address about six times for various shipments while only using the other unique addresses I found once, hoping Mongoose Inc. would stand out to Shyam.

The guard approached the computer. I quickly saved my changes onto the software portal and logged out, also closing the maps I had been using. I logged out of the VPN server too.

“Done!” I exclaimed, relieved to have cleared up any evidence in time. I handed the flash drive over to the guard, who pocketed it before leading me outside.

I prayed this would work and thatthistime, the cobra came to seek out the mongoose.

Chapter VI

Shyam

Jai burst into my office, holding his laptop. “You have to see this.”

“Don’t you ever knock?” I asked, annoyed, and looked up from the reports I was reviewing. Although my main priorities were getting Amelia’s body back and seeking vengeance, I couldn’t neglect my duties at Sethi Tech any longer.

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