Eric Lance stared at him for two seconds before he walked into the house with the two women behind him.
The living room had a dim, moody atmosphere, with soft lighting casting shadows across the space.
The gray walls and matching gray furniture deepened the room's dark tone.
The women dropped the trays on the table and left the room almost immediately.
Eric then walked towards the master bedroom. He knocked twice before he pushed the door open and stepped in.
The master bedroom too was dimly lit as well, with the scent of polished mahogany and aged leather filling the air.
Jett Adler sat behind his desk, his suit jacket draped on the chair behind him while he had the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up.
His sharp, facial features were half-hidden by the flickering light in the fireplace.
He had his piercing eyes pinned on the six frames containing live videos of the elderly men he was in a conference call with.
The frame on the right unmuted himself and screamed, his face visibly reddened in anger, "Where have you been for the past six hours? Three factories burned down overnight in Riveria early today."
"What have you done to take care of the losses the company has incurred because of your negligence?"
Jett had a calm and collected look on his face as he went silent for a few seconds.
"The authorities of Riveria are looking into it as we speak. By the end of today, I'll get my hands on the reason why such a thing happened."
"If the material used to build the factories were the reason such a thing happened, then the construction material company will have to pay for damages."
Another person unmuted himself and snorted.
"And what if it isn't? Seven staffs were heavily injured and two are in coma. Once the authorities of Riveria releases the news to the world that the fault came from us, the families of those staffs will sue."
"Maybe if you had listened to us and inspected the building in Riveria yourself three months ago, this wouldn't have happened!"
A third person unmuted himself and pointed a shaky finger at Jett through the screen.
"If our company is at fault here, the board of directors won't be taking the blame for you. You will take sole responsibility of it and do whatever we ask you to when the time comes!"
The man was still talking when a notification came in at the top corner of Jett's laptop.
Jett narrowed his eyes at what it was before placing his right hand on the mouse.
He tapped on it for a few seconds before his eyes dilated in realization of what he was.
Then he quickly spoke up dismissively.
"As the President of this company, of course I'll take responsibility for anything that goes wrong."
"This meeting has come to an end. If you have anything else to say, contact my assistant Eric Lance."
Then he ended the call leaned closer to the laptop, his back still straight as his fingers moved across the keyboard speedily.
Ten seconds after typing on the keyboard, his screen displayed several windows of data and codes scrolling rapidly.
The screen soon changed to that of a map, small dots blinking as he tracked a location. Lines of code scrolled quickly beside it, narrowing down the search.
Each time he entered a new command, the map zoomed in, revealing more details—first a region, then a city, and finally…
Meanwhile, inside the cab, Kelsie's phone pinged. She slowly took it up to see what it was, but hurriedly sat up and shot out of the cab to the nearest cybercafe when she saw what was going on.
"Miss? You've not paid yet! Miss!" The cab driver abruptly pulled the car to a halt and chased after her.
Kelsie took her seat opposite the first empty computer she saw. She didn't waste time before she began typing codes on it.
It took several minutes before she was able to lock out whoever it was that was trying to find her location.
As soon as she succeeded, the cab driver rushed into the cafe and walked straight to her breathing heavily.
"Miss, you've not paid me yet."
On the other end, Jett Adlers eyes darkened and he balled his right hand into a tight fist.
The next second, he got up and grabbed his suit jacket.
"Eric, take me to John's Cybercafe in the middle of town."
Eric nodded and led the way.
Inside John's Cybercafe, Kelsie got up and bowed slightly to the cab driver.
"My apologies, sir. I had something urgent to take care of."
The cab driver, who was about to yell at her, paused when he saw how young she looked. He had a daughter her age who was still in school.
Perhaps, could the reason she left in such a hurry be related to school work?
Must be it, she wouldn't run into a a cybercafe if she was trying to avoid paying cab fare.
He cleared his throat noisily and asked sternly.
"Are you a student?"
Kelsie though for a moment before she nodded.
"I had to submit my thesis. I almost forgot that the deadline was today."
She had stopped herself from getting hacked. She wasn't exactly lying. Besides, his furrowed brows relaxed as soon as he heard her.
"Is that so? Good thing you remembered."
As they left the cafe, she paid on the front desk. She got into the cab, but when the cab driver tried to get in, she rolled down the window and smiled at him gently.
"Good sir, it seems my course mates are running low on time too. They left home without their laptops."
"Since I'm already inside, do you mind helping me buy five desktops from the cafe? Including the one I used earlier."
"Five?"
Kelsie hummed and slipped out her wallet to take out money. "Yes."
Since she was a student in need, the middle-aged man reluctantly agreed and went into the cafe again.
Kelsie watched as he paid and had the desktops brought up and loaded into the trunk for him.
Then he got into the car and drove off.
Whe rested her head on the chair and closed her eyes restlessly.
No one had been able to break into the firewall Jesse made for her two years ago.
Not only was this person fast and sneaky, he was also a professional. Her security system didn't realize she was being hacked until he started asking for her specific location.
Who on earth did she piss of this time?
She thought for a moment, but no one came to mind. So she shook the thought out of her mind.
It was two years already, so it was only right that Jesse's firewall had weakened and one of the many hackers who she had pissed off in the past realizated that immediately.
"This isn't a race course, you punk!"
Her eyes snapped open when she heard the cab driver cuss at a driver.
She turned to see who he was cussing at and frowned slightly when she found the black BMW familiar.
Before she could get a look at the license plate, it was already out of sight.