Gauarded hearts

Chapter 14

Rosen

It's 11 pm and Jasmine has been in the basement since 5 pm she hasn't come upstairs once.

"Jasmine, I have ordered some food," I say over the intercom.

"Be there in a minute," she says. 20 minutes later and I hear the elevator open and she walks in, she's in leggings and a crop top her hair is down and she is wearing glasses.

"Please tell me there's coffee too, I ran out of coffee grounds." She says sighing. She looks tired, bags under her eyes. I've tried hacking into her security system to check out her basement but it's no use, whatever security system she has, it only allows her to get in there. Plus it would probably alert her. Even my hacking skills don't work. My hacking skills are amazing.

"Yes, a fresh pot of coffee. Also, I got you something." I say handing her a bag of pretzels.

"OMG, a bag of pretzels, really." She takes them and opens the bag and takes a handful and shoves them in her mouth I laugh.

"Yes, I owe you a bag. Years ago. So I figured I'd pay up now." I say resting my elbows on the counter.

"Rosen that was years ago, forget about it."

"Jasmine I can't forget about it, you have to know why I left the way I did, I literally had  no choice," I say

"Rosen, I don't have time for this. I'm really busy." She says

"I get that, but while you eat I'd like to explain." I hand her a carton of food.

"UHG, fine you have 5 minutes." She says oping the box and digging into the orange chicken.

"OK, my father shipped me off to an abandoned island for training, the day after we got back from our school trip, I was forced to train like an army. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone up until I left at age 20, then I got back in contact with your brother. I tried to find you but I couldn't. My father literally forced me on a bus blindfolded and tied up.  I tried to escape for years. It was like a prison. Jasmine, I didn't want to leave my first and only love. But I had to, I've done fucked up shit, killed many people. My first kill was forced when I was 12. Jasmine I didn't want you to be in my life 'cause I'm not a good guy. I wouldn't live with myself if I brought you down with me. I was just trying to protect you, Jasmine." I say looking into her eyes. She sighs.

"Rosen, you will always be my first and only love. You were wrong when you said I'd find someone else. I never did. I don't think I ever will either. I really have to get back to work. But thanks for finally telling me the truth." Jasmine says packing up the food and going back to her basement.

3 hours later

"Rosen, Jake so good of you to be here tonight. Sorry for taking you away from your day jobs. I know being a bodyguard full-time is important. But we need all the help we can get on this one. The Shadows team has been working for months on hunting down Roselyn. They had a break-in. In their system today, they found where she was last night, but then their system crashed. Shadow was able to fix it and get the video log and find the bunny trail of where she was. Their team is out hunting to bring in all the people Roselyn talked to in the last 24 hours. Everyone that had contact with her these past 2 days is already in the dungeon including her family. We have almost everything on Roselyn to make sure she never sees the light of day again. Shadows team is bringing another van load of people as we speak they shall be here any minute. Looks like they have arrived. Let's go meet the team." S.G.T. Briant says leading us to the dungeon. Theres about a hundred people in here. Shadow and the team really captured this many people. Damn

"This is Hazel, my daughter one of the best hackers on Shadows team, this is Storm, the mute, also an exceptional hacker very deadly too. This is winter, she is the eyes and ears in the sky. Shadow is not here tonight. Their Identity is a secret." He says I have a feeling Shadow is here tonight. Just an inkling.

"Ok, so this is what we know, Roselyn's last location was in a hotel 20 miles south of here. She has been staying there for a few weeks. Under an alias of Jazabell Jolyne. She is getting messy because of her family being here, she will make a slip-up and she will contact me. One she does we will grab her and bring her here. She cannot hide for long. Now get to work." S.G.T. Briant says.

I get to my desk and start freezing all her accounts and personal data. Everyone is tracking the paper trail, 1 hour later  I run into an error in my code. I try a few times to fix it. But it is beyond my hacking level.

"FUCK!" I yell as S.G.T. Briant walks up to my desk.

"What the problem Rosen?" he asks

"My system froze and crashed, my hacking level is not good enough to fix it I've been trying for the past hour," I say hitting a few buttons.

"Hang tight." He says pulling out a burner phone.

"Shadow we have a problem with computer 578, code 2983. Froze and crashed, Hacking level is not advanced enough for him to fix it." He pauses.  "Perfect I'll let 'em know." he hangs up

"Shadow is going to access your computer, it should boot up and the problem should be fixed in a few minutes. Hang tight." He says walking away and squeezing my shoulder. A few minutes later my computer boots up and I'm brought back to the same place I was, with no errors, and looks like I'm farther into the hacking than I was before my computer crashed.

"Holy shit." I look at the computer and there's a crypt note. I unencrypt it and it reads.

That was fun to fix, try not to break it again. Shadow. :)

I try to hack and find where it was sent from but it comes up empty. Damnit. I get back to clearing funds 2 hours later. I have a lead on where Roselyn is hiding. I have a feeling Shadow found her 20 minutes before everyone else. Because her team left in a hurry.

"GUYS I have a lead! Says she is there now, video footage and everything. An abandoned warehouse on 23rd Street 30 miles south." I say. Finally about to get this bitch. It's 7 am now and everyone is tired.

"Great work team, Go home and get some rest, it is your time to shine Shadows team!" S.G.T. Briant hits a button to alert Shadow. 

I leave the warehouse and hit the showers, I check the cameras and notice Jasmine is not in her room, she must be in the basement and probably fell asleep in there.

"Marcos, Jasmine up yet?" I ask. He shakes his head.