Hacked (Warriors of Light Book 5) Read Online Free Page B

reason to feel hurt. It was silly, in fact. Instead, she needed to concern herself with getting out of there and going home. Where she would be alone again. Right, that holds so much appeal to it. Not.
    She felt him at her back a moment later, the heat of him along her spine. “You seem upset by that. Why?” he asked her in a curious tone.
    “Because I’m a stupid, stupid woman,” she admitted and closed her eyes again. “Ignore me. This hasn’t been the best day.” She sighed. “Being taken from my home at gunpoint isn’t exactly what I call stellar.”
    “You were over my shoulder, not at gunpoint. Though the bit about it not being a good day, I won’t argue with. Definitely not how I’d originally planned to spend it.”
    “Yeah? What did you have planned?” she asked. It was the craziest thing, the way that he calmed and relaxed her. It was almost like the man had an inside track into her mind. “My day was going to be like any other. I would do what I needed to do for my job, which happens to be finding the flaws in large corporations’ firewalls, and then I was going to work on my latest project. Some unknown author has stuff together for an awesome series of books.” She frowned, turning to look up at him. “Although I haven’t finished all of the books yet.”
    “They were not files for an author or a book. You shouldn’t have posted the site, either. We’ve taken it down temporarily, until we can find a way to disable it permanently and wipe all the information you put up on the Net.”
    “What do you mean it wasn’t an author’s research? Was it for someone’s thesis paper, maybe? And how could you have taken my site down?” Then again, the alarms had started to ping, which was what she had been about to look into when the Marines had rung her bell.
    “It wasn’t for any paper, book, or article. It was never supposed to see the light of day, until someone decided to stick her nose where it didn’t belong and appropriate it. The information in the files is top secret, classified, and cannot ever be viewed outside of this base. One of the Marines is relatively knowledgeable about computers and introduced a virus, I think he said, to the site. It’s down until the Web administrator can attend to it.”
    A classical piece of music began to play. Digging into his pocket, Demaratus pulled out his cell and, with a glance to the screen, put it to his ear. “Yes? On our way.” He hung up. “He’s ready to see you now.”
    “Damn, that means I’ll be sleeping with the fishes tonight.” She wrapped her arms around her body once more. All of this over manuscripts that she had found online. She couldn’t seem to reconcile why in the world someone’s novels would get her in so much trouble with the United States Marines and these men that seemed to operate as some branch of the government. The worst part was the fact that not only was her dream man real, he hated her. Taking a deep breath, she nodded and stepped even farther away from Demaratus. “Okay, take me to your leader.” She couldn’t believe she had said that and not giggled.
    He lifted a brow at her words and shook his head. Putting his hand on her arm, he guided her out of the rooms and back into the hallway. He led her through the place, up an elevator, then down another long hall. Knocking on a door, he pushed it open when a gruff voice called out to them. Demaratus steered her into an office, where an even larger man stood next to a desk and stared at her without any expression.
    “Oh crap,” she whispered as she gazed at the huge man. “I’m so dead.” She had known that this day would come. She knew one day she would hack someone’s system and they would find out, but she hadn’t expected to be so young when she died. “Hello,” Holly said with a small wave of her hand. “I don’t like to swim, so I would really rather not sleep with the fishes, please.”
    “What the fuck is she talking about?” The big guy