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Married Before Midnight - Married Before Midnight by Sienna Quinn - Chapter 40
Author: Novels Audio
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Married Before Midnight
Chapter 40: The Web Tightens
Hannah’s fingers hovered over her keyboard, the weight of the anonymous message still pressing against her ribs like a cold hand. The words "Some things are better left unlogged" had vanished, but their threat lingered. Across the lab table, Isobel’s sharp exhale cut through the hum of the computers. "They’re scared," Isobel muttered, her eyes flicking between the cloned log file and the firewall alert still blinking on her screen. "Whoever this is, they didn’t expect us to dig this deep." Hannah swallowed hard. "Or they didn’t expect us to survive the dig." The morning light slanted through the blinds, casting striped shadows over their notes. The evidence was damning: faculty-level access, a deactivated technician account, and now, a direct warning. Caleb had always been ruthless, but this?
This was calculated. Isobel leaned forward, her voice low. "We need to trace that VPN. If they’re using internal tools, there’s a trail—somewhere." Hannah nodded, but her mind was already racing ahead. If Caleb had help from inside the department, this wasn’t just about sabotaging her grade. This was about silencing her. --- By noon, the campus buzzed with midweek energy, students laughing between classes, oblivious to the quiet war unfolding in the tech lab. Hannah’s phone buzzed—a message from Lucas. "Mom’s asking if you’re coming home for dinner. Also, you okay? You’ve been quiet." Her thumb hesitated over the screen. She couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not when every digital footprint she left might be watched. "Tell her I’ll be late. And yeah, just buried in assignments." A lie. But necessary. --- The bait they’d planted in the forum had worked—too well. The phantom user who’d tried to wipe the logs had left a breadcrumb: a time-stamped access request from a terminal in the business department’s restricted wing. Faculty only. Isobel’s fingers flew across her keyboard. "Got it. The VPN routes back to an IP leased by the university’s admin network. But here’s the kicker—it’s tied to an old project. One Professor Dawson supervised last year." Hannah’s breath hitched. Dawson. Caleb’s mentor. The man who’d praised Caleb’s "innovative methods" in front of the entire class. "This isn’t just Caleb covering his tracks," Hannah whispered. "This is Dawson protecting his golden boy." Isobel’s grin was razor-thin. "Then let’s give them something real to protect." --- They worked through the afternoon, crafting a decoy—a fake error log "accidentally" saved to a shared drive, one that hinted at a backup of the original tampered data. If Caleb or Dawson took the bait, they’d lead Hannah right to the source. But as Hannah packed her bag that evening, a new message flashed on her screen.
AnonymousUser03: "Stop digging. You won’t like what you find." Her pulse spiked. They were still watching. Still warning. Isobel’s hand clamped over hers. "They’re bluffing. They want you to back down." Hannah met her gaze. "Or they’re desperate." --- That night, rain lashed against the windows of Sweet Beginnings as Hannah pushed through the door, the scent of cinnamon and sugar wrapping around her like a shield. Olivia glanced up from the counter, flour dusting her apron. "You look like hell," she said bluntly. Hannah managed a tired smile. "Feel like it too." Upstairs, the house was quiet—just the murmur of the twins studying and Lucas humming in the kitchen. Normalcy. A stark contrast to the digital battlefield she’d just left. But as she curled into bed, her laptop open beside her, one thought refused to leave: They’re afraid. And that means I’m close.