Sentenced to Marriage by MadlainQ

Cyber-fight | was sitting, wrapped in bedsheets, with my back leaning against the head of the bed and the laptop on my thighs. | put on my earphone headset and instantly connected with Alan and Norton. They had been woken up by the salarm and had already logged on when | called them on chat.

“Don’t do anything for now. We need to observe this bastard’s moves and find the right moment to put the tracker on him,” | said, typing commands like crazy and struggling not to lose him.

“I see that fucker!” Alan burst through my earphones. “He is going to the bait and trying to open the new projects’ folder.” “What kind of a password do we have there?” | asked since Norton and Alan were the ones who had prepared the bait folder.

“It's a standard password with small and capital letters, two digits, and a special sign. We thought that the hacker would becsuspicious if the access was too easy,” Norton replied.” If it's the shacker who broke into the system before, then he is good enough to break the code quickly. It should take him approximately three to five minutes to break the code.” | looked at the clock. The hacker had been inside the system for only a few minutes, but it didn’t seem as if he was running around blindly. | had a feeling that he had known exactly what he was looking for and where to find i) “We should record his movements as proof,” | said, looking at the command windows that the hacker kept opening and closing.

| hated that we needed to wait for his move. This bastard could plant us a bug or a nasty virus, but we could only crush him after we knew what he or she was after. All three of us impatiently stared at the screen, watching the jerk struggling to get access to our false folder. “We have another breach!” Alan shouted. “He is trying to get into the account books!” “There's two of them?!” | called out, realizing that our once steady situation had just becmore dangerous.

“There are three intruders actually...” Norton revised.

“"Three?!” It was clear that we had underestimated our enemies, but there was no tto panic. | had an amazing team, and those hackers walked into our territory. “Split the screen into three. | will monitor the first hacker. Alan, keep an eye on the one who tries to check the company’s finances, and Norton, you will observe the third one.” “Yes, Ma'am!” Alan chuckled.

“I'm on it,” Norton confirmed.

The first hacker had just managed to crack our password. | nervously tapped on the laptop's case, watching our intruder copy the files from the bait folder called “Golden Dragon City 2” before deleting them from our system.

“What's your plan now, little one?” | muttered, staring at the hacker's movements on the screen.

Our gwas risky: we needed to stay as silent watchers before we knew exactly what those bastards were doing. Then we were going to trigger an alarm to scare them while shutting all exits and leaving only one route of escape-through the gate where they would all be given a secret tracker. We needed them to walk in and out, giving Alan’s special tracking program tto analyze their trail. The problem was that our perfect plan could easily fail if they tried to infect the system, which was quite likely to happen...

“My intruder is trying to copy personal files. Should | stop him?” Norton asked, “Wait one more minute, Norton,” | said, keeping my focus on the screen. “Alan, is it likely for your intruder to get access to the financial files?” “Nah, he would have to spend all day. We used the best type of coding on those files,” he replied boastfully.

I sighed, slightly relieved. “All right. We have the evidence we needed. Tto trigger the ala “Fuck!” Alan yelled. “That fucker gave up on unlocking the files and dropped the virus instead! “Norton, the alarm, now!” | shouted, trying to find and stop the malicious software from spreading “Do you need help with the virus?” Norton asked as he turned on the alarm.

“No, | will deal with it myself. Make those jerks escape through our gate. Stick to the plan,” | commanded firmly.

We spent the next few minutes without saying a single word; all of us were absolutely focused on the task at hand, typing thousands of commands at the speed of light. | clenched my teeth, my fingers fiercely flexing and pressing the computer keyboard as | crushed the virus kilobyte by kilobyte.

“Yes!” | screamed in ecstasy when | finally cleaned the system of any traces of the virus.

“We did it!” | heard Norton exclaim, confirming that those bastards had successfully entered our trap “You shouldn't mess with us, fuckers!” Alan roared, makingchuckle.

“Thank you, guys...” | panted through the microphone. “We've got what we wanted. Let's take a rest now, and we'll track them back in the morning.” | took off my headphones, breathing heavily but grinning like a little kid. Only then did | realize my bedroom door was open and wearing nothing but pajama pants Aren stood on the threshold, leaning on one side of the door frame.

| laughed nervously. “Did | wake you up?” He smirked. “Yes, you did.” My lips curved into an awkward smile. “How long have you been standing here?” “Long enough to start questioning whether | satisfy you in bed properly...” He chuckled, stepping closer and sitting on my bed. “Perhaps it’s more complicated since my wife has just climaxed while fighting cybercrime...” | blushed and pouted my lips. “I didn’t climax. It was a completely different type of excitement.

He shota sly grin. “Letcheck if you are wet, just to be sure.” His hand slid under my sheets, finding my thigh.

“No!” I blocked his hand, surprising myself with my reaction.

He raised his eyebrows, probably even more surprised than | was. | lowered my head, suddenly comprehending my impulses. “I can’t... Aren, | can’t keep falling down the rabbit hole... alone. Whenever I'm with you, I fall deeper, and you...” | raised my head and looked at him with a sad smile. “You don’t even know if you want to jump there with me.” Guilt and sorrow filled his expression. “I want to, but...” “Not yet,” | finished his thought. “I know that, and | wanted to wait for you, but how can | do that if | don’t feel like you're trying?” Aren took a deep breath and locked his eyes on me. “Wait after Lan Jing’s birthday. Can you wait until then?” “Wait for what, Aren? And how many days after are we talking about?” | asked with a bitter smirk.

| could see that he was nervous, a deep frown wrinkling his forehead. “I can’t give you all the answers, Cora...” He grabbed my hands and pressed them to his chest. “But | know that only you can makefeel something. | know that | am selfish, but right now, | am begging you to givea little more tuntil this Lan family shitshow is over. Then | can start making it up to you... please.” My chest squeezed as he breathed out the last word. | was supposed to toughen up and say how | felt, but he madehold on to my hopes again. | smiled faintly at him and agreed to wait, but deep down | was slowly preparing my heart for the possibility of leaving him right after our trip to China. My Aren Lan addiction entered a terminal phase; my system could either build immunity... or go to rehab.