Page 28 of Daddies Dark Desires (Forbidden Fantasies)

I haven’t heard a thing. I would.

Who else does she have that could help her do this?

And if she wanted in my system badly enough, why didn’t she come ask me?

Grumbling at myself, I know why.

I’m not warm. Friendly.

More than that, she has something to prove, and too often that means taking on too much herself.

But it’s the path she’s following that has me more concerned, the deep search of files that she’s too easily accessed, even if she had someone telling her what to look for.

It’s taking her far past where other agents have access. My program beeps and buzzes, warning me of the breach. I quiet it, riveted in my seat.

Dread numbs my chest as I watch the data fly by.

That directory…she didn’t find that on her own.

Harper’s following a trail thatsomeone else carved first.

I pull up the trail on another monitor, catching up with her, comparing strings of code, timestamps, cross-referencing access logs or echo-code tags embedded in those protected files, and I make it to the information she’s searching at the same time she does.

Someone beat her here—someone breached my security, and I had no idea.

What the fuck?

My traps didn’t flag it. Not even the ghost decoys. Which means…

Whoever hacked in first knew my system.

It’s too late to do anything about it now. I could stop the download Harper has in progress, but I don’t. Whatever information she’s gaining is already out there.

Besides, the files are encrypted.

It’s my only saving grace. Both Harper and whoever accessed them before would need a special code. Those take time or knowledge of whoever set them.

Ryan’s skill at keeping secrets is legendary, so there’s still a chance that whatever is in those files is safe. For the time being.

I leave the trail open, setting up traps on everything connected to it or around it in case whoever invaded beforecomes back. It’s not likely, but I’m taking every precaution to find this fucker. Just in case.

I initiate silent countermeasures: setting up a ghost trace, deploying pingbacks, rerouting Harper’s activity through a proxy to hide her from whoever else might be watching.

The failure of the invasion has me on edge. Burns me with indignation. How did I let this happen?

But it’s Harper’s movements on screen that keep me present. Keep me focused.

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I trust no one.

Especially not when I find a second presence lurking in my system.

There’s a second ping, going out this time. Alerting someone else. Someone who now knows what Harper has discovered.

It takes too many keystrokes to boot them, to wall them in, trap them, search for some link, tack a tracker on them as they slip out of my grasp.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

On screen, Harper’s hands are shaking, her eyes wide and glassy with unshed tears. “Dad? Is this what got you killed?”