Rising from the Ashes The Heiress They Tried to Erase Novel

Chapter 163: Left standing there, Chris found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words. A tight, unfamiliar frustration twisted in his chest, one he couldn't easily shake off.

He dragged in a slow, steadying breath, forcing the storm of emotions beneath the surface where they belonged.

He knew exactly who he was - there was no denying that. But Maia… she didn't know him at all. Worse, she had already made up her mind about the kind of man he was.

Chris pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the dull weight of exhaustion settle over him. Over the years, he had become a master at hiding behind carefully crafted layers. Maybe he had buried the real version of himself too deep.

And now, the boundary between the mask and the man had blurred so much that even he was struggling to pull them apart.

It looked like it was finally time to show Maia a side of him that she had never seen before.

A thick cloud of tension hung over the Ward Group's office, so heavy that it seemed one could cut it with a knife.

Vince couldn't sit still. The moment he saw the surveillance video making rounds online, his face flushed a furious beet red. The veins in his forehead throbbed as he dialed the top-tier hacker, his grip tightening on the phone. As soon as the call connected, he could no longer hold back the growl that rumbled in his chest. "What on earth are you doing?" he demanded.

The hacker, lounging abroad and blissfully unaware of the brewing domestic storm, was caught off guard. "What do you mean?"

Vince's tone turned ice-cold. "What do I mean? Not only has the video been restored, but it's in high definition!"

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The hacker froze, as if struck by lightning. He blurted, "Impossible! I covered my tracks cleanly. Unless the very heads of the two greatest hacker organizations moved against me, there's no way to recover a video I erased!"

"No way, you say? Just check online and see for yourself. The video has already been posted and is being shared all over the internet!" Vince slammed his hand on the table with a bang that echoed across the office. "You owe me an explanation - now!"

In a cold sweat, the hacker scrambled to open a domestic website and logged onto Facebook. The moment he saw the video, he felt like the ground had been ripped out from under his feet.

In the upper right corner of the footage shimmered a watermark - a faint, predatory silhouette of a hawk. Only those familiar with the trade would recognize the symbol at a glance.

It was the mark of Hawk, the chief hacker of ST.

How could this be possible? Hawk was a ghost among men, a figure so legendary that even the National Security Agency had failed to enlist him. How could he have been drawn into restoring a woman's video? It was nothing short of unbelievable!

Vince noticed the deathly silence on the other end of the line and pressed impatiently, "Have you seen the video? What on earth is going on?"

The hacker, utterly bewildered, could only mutter under his breath, "How is this possible… No way…"

No matter how many questions Vince fired at him, only stunned silence answered.

"Useless!" Vince roared, his face so dark it seemed a storm cloud had settled there. "I paid you a mountain of money, and you can't even handle this? How dare you call yourself a top-tier hacker? I think you should go back and retrain from scratch!"

This remark was a slap across the hacker's pride. That was Hawk they were talking about; even if he spent ten more years honing his craft, he wouldn't reach that height!

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