CEO'S REGRET: THE EX WIFE IS A TECH GENIUS

THE SECOND HACK

It was 1:00 AM.

Inside the Kain Group IT Command Center, Hudson Kain sat on a leather sofa, his eyes bloodshot, watching the fifty top security engineers struggle and fumble against their terminals.

Thirty-six hours had passed since Olympus Prime was shut down by Zero. The company was losing tens of millions of dollars every hour in frozen transactions, and international partners were issuing ultimate deadlines.

"Mr. Kain!" the Chief Technology Officer shouted suddenly, standing up from his chair in excitement.

"We found a backdoor! One of our external servers in the European node managed to bypass Zero’s dynamic lock! We can initiate a manual reboot!"

Hudson stood up instantly, his tall body radiating intense pressure. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. "Do it now!"

The CTO pressed the master override key.

On the main wall monitor, a green progress bar appeared: [SYSTEM RESTORATION: 10%... 30%... 60%... 90%... COMPLETED.]

Cheers broke out in the command center! Engineers hugged each other, laughing in relief!

"We did it! We restored the system!" the CTO wept with joy. "Zero isn't invincible! We bypassed their algorithm!"

Hudson let out a long breath, his tense shoulders relaxing slightly. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. A cold, arrogant satisfaction returned to his features.

Zero... you thought you could crush Kain Group? Hudson thought bitterly. In the end, my engineering team broke your lock.

He turned to Assistant Chen. "Announce to the press immediately that Kain Group has successfully repelled the cyber attack and restored full server functionality. Prepare a public statement."

"Yes, Mr. Kain!" Chen said enthusiastically.

However, before Chen could reach the door—

BZZZZZZT!

A violent, ear-splitting screech erupted from all eighty monitors in the command center!

The screens flashed blindingly white, then plunged into absolute black.

One second later, a single line of neon green code began typing itself automatically across every single screen in the room, completely ignoring the keyboard inputs of the panicked engineers!

> User 'Kain_Admin' detected attempting unauthorized manual bypass.

> Status: Amusing.

> Deploying Counter-Protocol: 'ECLIPSE'.

"What is happening?!" the CTO screamed, hammering frantically at his keyboard. "My keys aren't responding! The master terminal is locked!"

Before anyone could answer, the giant wall display ignited with a massive, dynamic three-dimensional projection.

It was no longer just error text. The entire file directory of Kain Group’s private executive database was being unzipped and displayed in real-time right before their eyes!

Financial ledgers, confidential merger negotiations, offshore holdings, and internal executive emails—millions of classified documents were being indexed and displayed like a public library catalog!

> Time remaining until public broadcast of encrypted database to global news networks: 05:00 minutes.

Panic, far worse than the previous night, engulfed the room!

"She... Zero is going to leak our entire private database to the world!" a senior VP screamed, turning pale as a corpse. "If those merger documents get out, Kain Group will face federal investigation!"

Hudson’s face was devoid of all color. He stepped up to the main console, staring at the five-minute countdown timer rapidly ticking down.

04:59... 04:58... 04:57...

He finally realized the brutal truth: Zero hadn't left a backdoor by accident. Zero had left that backdoor as a mouse trap. Zero was playing with Kain Group’s entire engineering team like a cat playing with a dying mouse!

"Assistant Chen!" Hudson roared, his voice shaking with a rare, desperate panic.

"Y-Yes, Mr. Kain?!"

"The bounty!" Hudson grabbed Chen by the collar, shaking him roughly, his eyes burning with terrifying fury. "Double it! Make it TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS! Find THAT Zero!!! Tell them... tell them I will give them whatever they want! Just stop the damn countdown!, NOW!!"