Chapter 3: First Hack – Uncle John
The hospital room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of machines and the faint orange light slipping in through the window. Outside, the city continued its restless rhythm—cars moving, people laughing, lives going forward.
Inside, Leena felt frozen in time.
Her mother lay motionless on the bed, eyes closed, breathing shallow but steady. Tubes and wires surrounded her, silent reminders of how fragile everything had become.
Leena sat beside the bed, her laptop resting on her thighs.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Money.
Every road led back to it.
Doctors.
Medicines.
Physiotherapy.
Long-term care.
Numbers kept replaying in her mind, stacking higher and higher until they felt impossible.
She closed her eyes briefly.
Then she opened them.
And began.
The system worked silently, smoothly—no dramatic sounds, no glowing screens. Just clarity. Her thoughts sharpened, aligning with the data flowing before her.
Uncle John.
Her father's old friend.
A man who smiled easily.
A man who had promised help when things were hard.
She had trusted him.
Now she dissected his digital life piece by piece.
Bank accounts opened first.
Multiple ones.
Hidden transfers.
Offshore movements.
Her jaw tightened.
Then emails.
Thousands of them.
Most ordinary.
Some encrypted.
She broke through without hesitation.
What appeared made her stomach twist.
Illegal gambling rings.
Underground betting networks.
Payments made in coded language.
"This isn't just debt," she murmured. "You're rotten."
She went deeper.
Private chats.
Cloud storage.
Hidden backups.
And then she found it.
A folder protected by layered encryption.
She paused for half a second.
Then unlocked it.
Photos.
Messages.
Transfer records.
A woman.
Another home.
Another life.
And a child.
Not a rumor.
Not a suspicion.
Proof.
An illegitimate child supported secretly for years.
Leena leaned back slowly, breath shallow.
Her father had lent money to this man.
Trusted him.
And Uncle John had smiled… while living like this.
Anger burned, sharp and controlled.
She didn't rush.
She copied everything.
Organized it.
Timestamped it.
Evidence that couldn't be denied.
She didn't want revenge.
She wanted survival.
Opening a fresh anonymous account, she composed a single email. Her words were calm, precise—no emotion wasted.
Subject: You Have One Chance
I have complete evidence of your illegal activities, financial crimes, affair, and hidden child.
Transfer ₹1,000,000 by tomorrow morning.
Failure will result in all information being released publicly.
This message cannot be traced.
This is your only warning.
She attached samples.
Just enough.
Then she sent it.
The moment the email left, Leena closed the laptop halfway.
Her heart pounded—but not from fear.
From certainty.
Across the city, in a high-end apartment glowing with warm lights, Uncle John slept peacefully.
Silk sheets.
Expensive furniture.
Soft music humming in the background.
He had been laughing earlier.
Drinking.
Enjoying himself.
Thinking about how easy it had been to ignore Leena's call.
"She's just a girl," he had told himself. "What can she do?"
His phone vibrated on the bedside table.
Once.
Twice.
Annoyed, he reached for it.
The email notification caught his attention.
This address.
Very few people had it.
His smile faded as he opened the message.
And then—
The world tilted.
His face went pale.
His mouth went dry.
Screenshots.
Bank trails.
Photos.
His hands began to tremble violently.
"This… no," he whispered. "This can't be real."
Another email arrived immediately.
Payment Instructions:Convert funds to Bitcoin.Transfer to the address below.
Cold sweat broke out across his neck.
If his wife saw this—
If the public saw this—
His reputation.
His family.
His freedom.
Gone.
Minutes earlier, he had been carefree.
Now he was trapped in a cage made of his own secrets.
He scrambled out of bed, pacing the room.
Anger surged.
"Who is this?!" he hissed. "Who dares—"
But the evidence didn't lie.
He knew he had no choice.
With shaking fingers, he opened his banking apps.
Converted cash.
Moved assets.
Each click felt like tearing flesh.
Finally, the transfer completed.
He slumped onto the edge of the bed, fists clenched.
That's when the bathroom door opened.
A woman stepped out, towel loosely wrapped around her body.
Laila.
She took one look at his face and frowned.
"What happened?" she asked.
John stared at her for a moment.
Then the words spilled out.
The email.
The threat.
The money.
She listened silently, her expression unreadable.
When he finished, she spoke calmly.
"So the money is gone," she said. "But what if they come back?"
John swallowed.
She stepped closer.
"Your wife has gold," Laila continued. "Savings. Accounts.""She and her family don't care about you anymore."
His eyes flickered.
"We take what we can," she said quietly."And we disappear."
He hesitated.
"What if the hacker demands more?" he asked.
Laila smiled faintly.
"Then we'll already be gone."
John exhaled slowly.
"Yes," he said. "You're right."
Relief mixed with fear.
"I'll arrange everything," he promised. "Trust me."
They didn't notice the silence around them.
Didn't notice—
That someone was listening.
Back in the hospital, Leena sat perfectly still.
Her screen displayed a clean audio waveform.
Every word recorded.
Every plan captured.
She saved the file carefully, labeling it twice.
Evidence.
Insurance.
She looked at her mother.
"Don't worry, Amma," she whispered. "No one will hurt us again."
The city outside continued to move.
But inside Leena—
Something had changed permanently.
This wasn't just about money anymore.
If someone crossed her family—
They would face consequences.
A cold light flickered in her eyes.
Uncle John believed this nightmare was over.
For Leena—
This was only the first move.
Leena didn't stop there.
After securing the money and saving the recordings, she leaned back and stared at the screen again.
Her thoughts returned to the accident.
The night.
The crash.
The way everything had fallen apart so perfectly.
Too perfectly.
She began searching.
Police databases.
Traffic cameras.
Insurance records.
Digital footprints.
She dug deep.
Deeper.
Then deeper still.
And found—
Nothing.
No raw footage.
No backups.
No cloud mirrors.
It wasn't just deleted.
It was wiped.
A complete erasure.
Leena slowly leaned back in her chair.
So this wasn't fate.
Someone had cleaned the internet itself.
Her lips curved into a faint, cold smile.
"You erased everything," she whispered to the empty room."But you can't erase yourself."
Her eyes hardened, a sharp, icy light settling within them.
"You won't escape me for long," she said calmly."Your end will be in my hands."
She closed the laptop.
For now, the money problem was solved.
Her mother's treatment could continue.
The immediate danger had passed.
But Leena knew something important—
She wasn't the same person she had been yesterday.
The fear was gone.
The hesitation too.
In its place stood distance.
Control.
A quiet, dangerous calm.
If before she had been warm and open—
Now she was like ice.
Later that evening, as she sat beside her mother's bed, a familiar presence stirred in her mind.
"System," she thought, her voice steady."Give me the mission reward."
There was a pause.
Then—
"Mission completed."
Before she could focus further, a faint notification flickered at the edge of her awareness.
She ignored it.
At that moment, her attention had been on Uncle John and Laila's conversation—their voices, their plans, their greed.
Only after everything settled…
Only after silence returned—
Did the system speak again.
"Host has successfully completed the mission."
"Reward issued."
"D-level reward box available."
A subtle interface unfolded before her inner vision.
Simple.
Quiet.
Waiting.
Leena inhaled slowly.
"Open it," she said.