Chapter 10  

Upstairs, Nicole had taken a shower and gotten changed, finally getting a moment of peace.

With nothing to do, she turned on her computer.

After fiddling with the normal Windows interface for a while, a mysterious window popped up, revealing a list of The Hunter jobs inside.

Looking at the list of jobs, a head portrait flashed in the private chat window. She clicked open it and saw the teammate codenamed Specter talking to her. [Lucifer, you have been offline for many days. Where have you been?]

[Just living a few days of normal life,] Nicole calmly replied.

[You have been on the wanted list online. I can’t believe that you can still enjoy a normal life.] Specter showed her a few screenshots. While she was away for the past few days, someone had pinned an order at the top, and she was the target.

[Isn’t that common?] Nicole smirked, not taking it seriously.

In the dark web called The Hunters, whether it was The Hunters Union or a lone Hunter, it was common to offend someone because of taking on certain jobs. Most of the jobs she had accepted this year were big cases, and it was normal that she was now wanted.

[Common? Didn’t you see the bounty? It is $10 million!] Specter attached an emoji that showed as if he was about to crawl out of the screen.

[Oh, yeah?] Nicole clicked an icon, and sure enough, she saw the reward of the job, which was the highest reward of this year. It seemed that she had stepped on someone’s toes, and that person was offering a $10 million bounty to come after her. That was interesting.

If she was not the one being wanted, she would have taken on the job.

“Oh, yeah? You should lie low from now on and don’t expose yourself.”

Nicole looked at the screen and replied sarcastically, [Worry about yourself. The entire world knows that you and I have worked together.]

She was confident of staying undetected as no one had found her for so many years. Specter was her partner, but she was not sure how well Specter could hide.

[Damn it! You just reminded me; I almost forgot. I had better stay offline from now on. Take care.] Specter went dark right after.

Nicole shook her head at Specter's nervousness. It was she who was wanted, not Specter.

Nicole let out a sigh and continued to browse through the list. Risking her safety, she picked a job that offered an attractive reward, and then shut down the computer and went to sleep.

Unbeknownst to her, her actions were provocative to someone else. A tall man was looking at the web page with sullen eyes in a dark room somewhere. He had finally settled things about his fiancée today. What really caused him a headache was this hacker. The phone rang, and he picked it up.

“Mr. Johnston, Lucifer appeared again and even accepted a job,” Max, Jared’s assistant, said in disbelief.

Jared’s eyes darkened and said coldly, “I saw it.”

Lucifer, the most powerful hacker in The Hunters, had caused him to lose a lot of money three months ago. He had been looking for this hacker, but she had not appeared. So he had to put a bounty on her.

When she suddenly went online today, Jared immediately sent someone to trace her location.

He had failed to defeat Lucifer’s firewall, and Lucifer had successfully gone online and accepted a job before going dark again. This was nothing short of a provocation to him.

“What do we do?” Max did not know what to do. “She was online for quite a while, yet our people could not trace her down.”

Jared’s eyes darkened as he loosened his bow tie and said coldly, “Since we can’t catch her, then let’s bait her.”

“You have an idea?” Max was relieved.

Jared squinted and said again in a bitter voice, “No matter what job she has accepted today, find the client and take over.”

He could catch her as long as he became the client.

“Yes! Understood.” Max nodded and hung up.

Jared put down his phone and stared at Lucifer’s avatar, and scoffed. “I lost a hundred million dollars because of you. I am going to catch you.”

Three days had passed in the blink of an eye. Nicole had officially returned to the Riddle family, and almost everything except her school was in place.

Daniel and Gloria were eager to seek help from Damien, Daniel’s eldest brother. So Daniel planned to take Nicole back to see Damien, and Sean was coming back to pick them up.

Inside the car, Daniel could not help telling Gloria. “No matter what Damien and his wife say today, stay calm for the sake of our child.”

“Got it,” Gloria replied with a martyred look.

Sean could see Nicole’s perplexity and whispered, “Our two aunts may be a little mean when they talk. Don’t take it to heart.”

“Got it.” Nicole nodded. Seeing Gloria’s nervous look, she knew that the two aunts must be nasty.

Nicole thought for a moment, and then took out her phone and sent a text message.

Sean started the car. Norah smiled and waved at the four of them. “Be safe, Mom, Dad, Sean.”

“I will.” Sean did not look at her but fired up the engine immediately. Even Daniel and Gloria did not talk to her.

Watching the car drive away, Norah’s eyes were filled with a look of indignation. They all would take her along when they went to her grandpa’s place before this. But now, they just took Nicole alone. She was not qualified to go with them after their biological daughter had returned. “Nicole, I’d like to see how a hillbilly like you gets into Royal Creek Institute!”

She knew the two aunts very well. When she first wanted to enter Royal Creek Institute, they all found a thousand and one ways to stop her. Now it would be even more impossible for a country girl like Nicole to get their help.

She would like to know how else Nicole could compete with her.