Page 3 of Bad Girl Dilemma

But I don’t plan on getting caught.

Obsidian has the honor of being my introduction into double-digit heisting, and I’ve been doing this for two years.

Up ten floors. Through the server vault. Past biometric locks. My custom key slips into the panel, and I wait for the soft chime of access granted.

Ding.

I grin under the mask. Too fucking easy.

I plug in, fingers flying, siphoning encrypted data through my proxy chains, dumping it into blockchain wallets faster than a heartbeat.

The stream’s eating it up. Comments fly.

“Holy shit, she’s in.”

“That’s Triple D’s master key, isn’t it??”

“Fuck, five mil. Six! Gah, seven and a half!”

“You’re on fire, Spec! Get it, girl!”

“GET OUT GET OUT?—”

Wait. Something’s wrong.

The files… they’re looping. Duplicating. I blink.

INTRUSION DETECTED. TRACE IN PROGRESS.

Reverse beacon triggered.

User: SPECTER

Location: LOGGED

Protocol: Velvet Vice Fingerprint Activated.

Cold drips into my veins. My drone flashes red.

What. The. Fuck.

No.

My breath strangles in my throat. I yank the drive, slam my laptop closed, kill the stream.

How did he?—?

I’ve barely been here five minutes. To react this fast, he’d have to have known, have to have been lying in wait.

How thefuckdid he know? Every piece of equipment I use is encrypted. Designed by me because I trust no one else in this world. Life lessons learned the hard way.

A voice slides through the earpiece. Not mine. Not filtered. Smooth. Male. Lethal.

“You shouldn’t have been so sloppy, little thief.”

I freeze.

There’s no fucking way. I wasn’t sloppy. I fucking wasn’t.