Page 1 of Hacked For Love
Hacked For Love
A Billionaire Romance
Brilliant, reclusive young hacker Robin Locke just pulled off the score of the century. She has successfully hacked the Bitcoin wallets of multiple billionaires and left electronic “breadcrumbs” for each of the three men to find, implicating each other’s IT departments for the theft. Armed with almost a billion dollars in stolen funds, she’s poised to change the lives of fifty thousand desperate Americans through anonymousdonations.
Unfortunately for Robin, one of the three billionaires—and the only one not connected to a crime family—has seenA Fistful of Dollarsand knows this gambit when he sees it. Drake Steele, Bitcoin billionaire turned successful industrialist, is determined to find the hacker who stole from him, and not only get back his money, but get a very angry mafioso off his back. But when he finally tracks her down, he ends up with an unexpecteddilemma.
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Chapter1
Robin
I can’t sleep again. There’s too much crying outside. And it’s kids this time, which makes it that muchworse.
I glance up from my wall-length computer desk over to the window where the noise is trickling through. The drama across the alley started two hours ago and just keeps going. I’m not mad at the miserable family making the racket; they can’t helpit.
I’m mad at the one who made themmiserable.
This bastard Tom Link is just like my uncle. Those poortenants.
After learning about all the slumlords in this neighborhood, I decided to do something about it. I’ve started buying up the buildings around here, fixing them up and making sure the rent’s fair, the hot water runs, and the lights don’t flicker every time someone runs a space heater. I hire a long-term tenant to be the building manager, and over time a shitty place becomes a decentone.
But I haven’t gotten to that one next door yet. The owner wants too much for the building; I have to find a way to make him desperate enough to knock the price down. I do not want him walking away with a small fortune when he should be dragged off inchains.
It won’t be tough—like most guys with pockets as deep as his, Thomas Link must have skeletons in his closet. And I know I can yank the door wide open. All I need is something juicy enough—outstanding warrants, taxevasion.
My fingers start dancingover the keyboard again as I glower at my screen. Around me, my dim apartment is warm and snug; double windows, extra insulation, and a hydronic heating system were just a few of the improvements I made to thisbuilding.
I still remember how it feels to sleep in a cardboard box. Now when I crank up the temperature to seventy-five degrees, I feel like I’moverindulging.
But this is what everyone deserves. And I’ve been trying to make sure that everyone has it—on the dime of those who are so ridiculously rich that they’ll never miss it. Every year, I get a little further along in making this dark, crumbling corner of South Park, Seattle a better place tolive.
I’ll find something to break Link, and then go in and fix that building,too.
If Tom Link’s public face is this nasty, chances are he is five times worse in private.Get the right information to the right people, and he’ll be begging for ready cash to defend himself in court. I smile frostily at my screen as Itype.
Link refuses to spend a cent to upgrade the building infrastructure, even when ordered to by the city. Right now, their “free heat,” an ancient set of radiators that I can usually hear banging away from my bedroom, isn’tworking.
Which means a whole building full of tenants are now huddled around space heaters, wrapped up in blankets, trying to tough out this epic cold snap. And some of them are going hungry, too.That prick. He must know—he just doesn’tcare.
Iwill neverin my life understand people who just don’tcare.
And that’s why I’m going to punish him—and steal some of his resources to start fixing this problem.Book them all into hotels? Buy them all down comforters and low-wattage heaters?I’ll come up with something; I alwaysdo.
When I was a little girl and Mom and Dad were still alive, they would have the driver take us through the worst neighborhoods back in D.C. and Baltimore. They did this to show me the struggles of poor people and to show me how to reach out a hand to help. It taught me gratitude for what I had and sympathy for those withnothing.
And then I had nothing, not even my parents, and I started sympathizing with poorer people even more. More than that—thanks to what my remaining “family” did, I started hating wealthy predators and the damage they do to theworld.
A family out there is going without dinner. The father is angry and apologetic. The mother weeps inshame.
I’ll send them something. But how do I figure out which apartment they’rein?
It’s January now—deep winter. After the holidays, the food banks around here run dry for a while, and everyone’s already behind on their bills. So, little kids all over town end up going hungry, and their parents are blamed for not beingricher.
To hell with it. Everyone around here could use somehelp.
I order pizza, wings, juice, and hot coffee for the whole building on the landlord’s account. Then I make myself tea and sit down to brainstorm about what else I can do for them before I manage to buy theplace.
