Chapter 156 - Katherine's Armor

The man furrowed his brows as he read the words on his laptop. He scoffed, thinking that someone was playing a game with him. Wanting to ignore the threat on his screen, he pressed the ESC button on the keyboard but as soon as he did, another message appeared on the screen:

[Uh-oh! All the files in your computer are encrypted. You can no longer access them unless you agree to our terms. If you understand, say: Yes.]

The man's face paled upon seeing the message on his screen. He swallowed and began to feel nervous, the threat finally sunk in to him and he feared that he will lose all the files in his computer. His eyes darted to the blinking red dot on top of the screen and his hands trembled, realizing that someone was watching him at that moment.

After having a mental debate, he finally spoke, "Y-Yes"

[Very well. Stop posting any articles about Katherine Miller. Do you understand?]

The man gulped and was hesitant to answer but when he saw a few pictures flashed on his screen, his eyes widened in horror. The pictures were from his "confidential folder", and there was not a single one of them that he wanted to show to anybody. Ever.

"Y-YES!" he exclaimed.

Styles and Falcon heartily laughed at the man's sweaty face. Styles turned his head to the side and asked, "Are you really not going to buy me—"

"No, Styles. I'm not buying you a 3D printer." Falcon shot him a look.

"Fine. I'll just ask this guy to give me the rest of the funds that I need." Styles went back to typing, and soon, another message appeared on the man's screen.

[Good. Your files are no longer accessible. In order to recover all your files, you need to send $2000 worth of Bitcoin to this BTC address:]

The message was followed by 34 characters that consisted of random digits and letters.

"You are such an opportunist," Falcon commented, in which Styles only shrugged.

The online columnist was taken aback by the hacker's attempt to extort money from him. His mouth hung open at the hacker's absurd demand, and just as he scoffed, another set of photos and files floated in his screen causing him to feel enraged. His files were held hostage by the sick hacker and now he was asked for ransom!

"Okay! Fine! F*ck!" The columnist cursed as he whipped out his phone and did as he was told. He didn't have any other choice at the moment, and ultimately, he didn't want to risk his files going to the wrong hands.

Soon, Styles received the $2000 worth of Bitcoin, making him smile from ear to ear. "Oh, yeah, baby! Wait… should I have asked for more?"

Falcon got up from the chair and headed towards the kitchen. "Finish your task and stop playing. Parker cannot know that she is alive."

"Of course." Styles suddenly turned serious and started typing hastily on his keyboard. "We can't allow that. Don't worry, senpai… He wouldn't even know what happened tonight," he said right after he took care of the columnist and the rest of the articles online.

He had a huge smile on his face as he reached for the cronut and stared at Katherine's picture with Damien. "My Queen…" he muttered as he raised the pastry towards her as though he was giving her a cheer.

…

New Shadow's Base

Christopher Curtis just came back from the most recent mission that was supposed to be only 1-month long. It had been a little over two months already and he was exhausted. As soon as he landed, he received a phone call from the man whom he hired to watch over Katherine and learned about the articles that were blowing up online.

His top priority was to stop all of the articles from getting so big that it will catch Parker's attention. Entering the base, Chris went through a series of security measures before he went up to meet Parker in his office to do a debriefing of his mission.

Chris studied Parker's expression the entire time and it looked like the man didn't know anything about what was happening... yet. So as soon as their session was done, Chris rushed out of the base. He was about to call his contact outside of Shadow to get updates regarding the order he gave to remove the articles when he received a call from the man he tasked to watch over Katherine.

"What?!" he spat as soon as he answered.

"Boss, all the articles are gone," the man on the other line reported.

"What do you mean they're gone?" Chris hurriedly went to Shadow's Base that night even though he hadn't slept for almost two days and his last meal was nothing but a granola bar several hours ago. He badly needed sleep for him to function properly.

"I mean… someone must have deleted all of it from the internet. It's wiped out and nothing shows up now. It's as if there was no scandal at all."

Chris pinched the bridge of his nose and ended the phone call. He received a message from the hacker that he knew outside of Shadow: [Boss, everything is clean now. Btw, I wasn't alone. Park must have hired another expert. There was not much left for me to remove.]

Entering his car, Chris tossed the phone onto the passenger's seat. He just came back from the warzone and being greeted by this incident made him even more exhausted. He didn't know how long he could keep up with it. He fluttered his eyes open and his blue eyes looked wistful.

Reaching for his phone again, he opened it and stared at the wallpaper of him and Katherine – his arm draped around her shoulder while she leaned on him, a picture taken before she went to her first mission alone. So many years had passed yet his heart remained the same. 

His painful reverie was interrupted by the ringing of his phone and he groaned when he knew what he was about to hear. "Chris," he answered.

After listening to the order for the next mission through the phone, he responded in a toneless voice, "Copy that." 

He started the engine and drove back to the airport where a jet was waiting for him for his next assignment. His next mission wouldn't be until three days later but he had to fly out early to meet some important people from Shadow's international base. As a soldier, Chris could only follow orders from his superior.

It was only Katherine that made him do things a soldier mustn't do.

…

Back at the Pearl Gardens, it was an hour later when Damien went back to the master bedroom. Because there weren't any hateful articles anymore, he felt slightly better. Entering the room, he found Katherine on the bed with Bear snuggled with her.

"Hey…" Katherine beamed upon seeing him. "Look at this fluffy one… He's so cute."

Damien sat on the bed and the puppy immediately bounced towards his lap, asking to be pet. He rubbed Bear's belly and chin before setting him down the floor. "You're not allowed on the bed," he said in a gentle tone. The brown ball of fur curled up next to the bed. 

"How strict," she commented with a playful smile on her face as Damien laid down next to her.

"This is my bed. Only you and I can sleep here." He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. "Are you feeling better?" he asked. 

Katherine nodded, returning his hug with her own and nuzzling her face on his chest. Damien smelled of a woodsy and vanilla scent — it was so calming and nice that it made her feel even more comfortable in his arms. "You're right… You're my family. Thank you, Damien."