CHAPTER 214: CHAPTER 214 CLEVER

He leaned forward, his old yet razor-sharp hands gripping the desk with quiet authority. "My own grandsons—the boys I raised—now they turn on me. They want me gone, want to carve up everything I built with these hands. They’ve got money, they’ve got influence, they’ve got that reckless hunger for power. But what they don’t got... is you."

Bella’s brown eyes flickered. She stayed quiet for a long moment, letting his words settle, before asking softly but firmly, "So you’re not just asking me to protect a building. You’re asking me to fight against your own family."

The silence stretched. William’s jaw tightened, and then he gave a slow nod. "Yes. And that is why I believe only Bellatrix could handle this. If you agree, I will grant you anything you ask. Protection. Resources. Wealth beyond measure. But more importantly—I will give you a chance to shape a fortress no one can ever break."

William shifted slightly in his chair, his frail hands steady as he reached toward the polished desk. He clicked open his sleek MacBook, the silver surface catching the light.

Then the screen glowed alive—lines of blue and white unfolding into a rotating 3D model.

"Look," William said softly, his voice carrying a note of pride that made Bella lean forward unconsciously.

The holographic-style blueprint displayed a massive high-rise building, its glass exterior shimmering under simulated light. But as William tapped the trackpad, the view zoomed inward, peeling away floors like layers of skin until intricate circuits, steel veins, and neon-lit frameworks appeared beneath the digital surface.

Bella’s brown eyes widened. She had seen countless system maps before, but never with such layered precision. Her pulse quickened as she whispered, "Is this... your building’s central nervous system?"

William smiled faintly. "Yes. Every door, every elevator, every wall panel—they are all wired into this." He rotated the 3D blueprint again, showing glowing lines running through each floor like blood vessels. "I call it The Spine. It connects everything, like a living organism. The elevators can lock down individually. The air vents can seal themselves. Even the fire sprinklers are programmed to respond not to smoke, but to unauthorized DNA signatures."

Bella blinked in awe. Her fingers twitched, aching to touch the system herself. "This is insane... you’ve built a fortress disguised as a business tower."

"Exactly." William tapped again, and the 3D model expanded, revealing dozens of red nodes across the structure. "But here is the problem. These are my weak points. Access terminals. Hidden control panels. AI relay stations. All connected, all potentially vulnerable."

Bella leaned closer, her hacker’s instincts kicking in immediately. "If someone breached one node, they could pivot across the network, leapfrogging from one panel to the next. Like a worm eating through fruit."

William’s eyes sharpened with respect. "You understand quickly. That is precisely how my elder grandson has been trying to get in. He is reckless, but he has resources. His people already managed to disable two relay nodes. If they disable three more, the entire Spine will collapse on itself."

Bella exhaled slowly, almost trembling at the challenge. "So you want me not just to patch the holes... but to redesign the shield."

William’s smile widened, impressed. "Yes. I need you to create a guardian within this system. Something smarter than a simple firewall, stronger than any lock. An AI hunter that adapts, fights back, and evolves with every attack."

Her eyes lit up. She sat straighter, almost forgetting she was supposed to be Isaac Snow, the calm, handsome hacker. "You’re talking about a self-healing architecture. A system that rewrites itself the moment it detects intrusion. Like a digital hydra."

William chuckled. "Hydra, yes. Cut one head, and two grow back."

Bella’s lips curled into a grin, her nerves forgotten. "I can do that. I can build a learning shield. But..." She paused, tilting her head. "If your grandson is as dangerous as you say, I’ll need more than access to the system. I’ll need his breach logs, his attack patterns, anything he’s already tried."

Without hesitation, William tapped again. A new window opened, displaying streams of green code scrolling across a black background. Bella’s sharp gaze devoured every string. To anyone else, it looked like gibberish. To her, it was a map of her enemy’s fingerprints.

Her voice was quiet but firm. "These aren’t just brute-force attacks. He’s using hybrid injection. He has someone skilled working with him."

William’s jaw clenched. "Yes. A man called Reiss. Ex-government contractor. Ruthless."

Bella’s mind was racing, her heart thundering with a thrill.

She leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "Then it will be fun. Because if Reiss tries again, I’ll make sure his code is eaten alive before it even touches your Spine."

William leaned back in his chair, his tired eyes still sharp with calculation. "How many days do you think you will take?" he asked, folding his hands on the desk, watching her like she was already the solution to all his problems.

Bella exhaled, leaning forward slightly. "I can’t give you a number without running diagnostics. First, I’ll need access to a sandbox copy of your system—something detached from the live Spine. If I test directly on the main architecture, I might destabilize your current defenses. But if you already have a simulation server, I can begin immediately."

William’s lips curved with satisfaction. "Good. I have a shadow server in the basement level. A mirror of the entire system. I designed it exactly for this purpose—testing. No one else has touched it."

Bella’s eyes gleamed. "Perfect. Then it depends on the complexity of your intruder’s methods. If his breach scripts are basic, I can design a learning defense in a week. If he’s clever and uses modular exploits—programs that evolve during the attack—then I’ll need to build something much smarter. That could take weeks, maybe even a month. I won’t know until I get inside."

William nodded, unsurprised. "Time does not matter as much as results. What matters is that you stay ahead of him."

Bella tilted her head thoughtfully, her mind already sketching diagrams in the air. "I’ll create something adaptive, but not just adaptive—it will bait him. Instead of blocking him outright, the shield can open decoy pathways. Honeypots. He’ll think he’s breaching deeper, when really, he’ll be feeding me his tools and signatures. Every move he makes, I’ll record. Every exploit he tries will strengthen the shield."

William’s expression brightened with approval. "A trap inside the fortress. You’re clever."

Bella smiled faintly. "I prefer to think of it as giving the intruder enough rope to hang himself."