Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
“They hire me to investigate financial inconsistencies, misappropriation of funds, and irregularities with the company, and to investigate fraud and cybercrimes,” he tries to explain it to me. “I work for private companies also and, well, the government—but I can’t discuss that.”
“How?” My curiosity is piqued.
“A computer is not the sacred place people think it is,” he says with a smirk. “People use those things without a second thought, thinking that things can be deleted.” He folds his hands together as he sits forward. “News flash, they can’t.” He grabs his cup of coffee and takes another sip. “So I go in and find out what’s wrong, and they either change it or people get fired.” He shrugs. “But then sometimes the board of directors calls me in and asks me to see if everything is up to par and, well, no one likes when I show up.”
“How did you even get a job like that?”
“It started when I was younger.” He smiles. “I started hacking into things here and there.”
“What does that mean?” I ask him, knowing there is something more to that.
“Well, one year, I think it was Stone, he was failing math, and he asked if I could change his grade. So, I hacked the system and his forty-nine got changed to a seventy-nine.” I gasp.
“Did anyone find out?” I ask him.
“Yeah, the teacher did when his parents didn’t show up to have a meeting with them.” I put my hand to my mouth. “Obviously, I didn’t only change his grade, I changed a few, so they chalked it up to a system error.”
I shake my head. “That’s interesting.” I pick up my cup of coffee.
“I guess it is, but I’m not going to lie, I shit the bed when I found out that they called in the authorities to see if anything else was compromised. My thug life was short-lived,” he confesses, his voice soft, but then laughs. “I mean, I did hack the internet when my cousin Franny had a sex tape.” My mouth hangs open. “And then Uncle Matthew needed some info on someone. What I’m saying is, I need you to be honest with me.”
I put the cup of coffee down, finally realizing what he is saying. “Or you’ll find out yourself.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. There really isn’t anything for him to find out that he doesn’t already know, except for the fact my credit score is shit and I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, but I’m slowly working my way out of it.
“In not so many words.” He makes sure he stares in my eyes when he says the next part, “Or I’ll have someone do it from my team so I don’t feel guilty.”
“Someone from your team?” I ask him and he nods his head.
“Yeah, a couple of guys from the same class as me decided to open a firm and, well, now we are the most sought out firm in the world. There are different divisions in the company. We started with just the three of us, and now we have over one hundred people working for us.” He looks down and then looks up again. “I’m sorry for leaving you to do it all by yourself.”
My hand flies out to put on his arm, the way his voice cracked rocks me to my core.
“You didn’t know.”
“But now I do, and it’s time to do my share,” he declares to me. “You don’t live the high life, and I can’t even think about the struggle you had without hating myself. So, I need you to be honest with me.” He blinks away the big tears. “And tell me about what you owe.”
“I’ve got it under control,” I reply, not really sure what else to say. “Now, I do.” I avoid looking into his eyes as I hold the cup and look down in it. “But it wasn’t always like that.”
“I want to know,” he nudges, and for the first time I finally let someone in.
“Well, after I made my stance that I was not going to give up the baby or terminate my pregnancy, all financial aid from them stopped. My allowance didn’t come one month and I was like whatever, but then I got a nice notice from the school that I owed them for the tuition, which was fourteen thousand dollars.” I shake my head. “And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, when I went to the doctor the month after, I found out my health insurance wasn’t going to cover Avery. For the first time in my life, I was literally alone.” I see his hands clench into fists. I’m back to feeling the despair like I was that day. I felt like I had nowhere to turn, feeling like the world would swallow me up. Every day I got up and wondered how I would go on, but I fought for everything we have. I worked my ass off, and it’s finally coming back to me. “And then she was born premature, so there was six weeks in the NICU.” I wipe away the tear. “But I’m on a payment plan,” I say, proud of myself. Proud that no matter how my parents told me I would fail, I didn’t.