Chapter 205: Craving

As soon as Ivy and Joshua went inside, Tim couldn't hold himself and made a call to Jared. He couldn't delay this explosive news any further. His Master had to know about it and the sooner the better. They could come up with a backup plan if things did not turn out in their way. But how many ever times he tried, Jared's phone was not reachable.

'Master, please pick up the phone. Please.' He begged in his mind. But nothing happened. How many ever times he tried, he ended up hearing the operator's same old recorded dialog. He wanted to cry out loud in frustration. He then remembered that Jared's assistant accompanied him everywhere he went most of the time. So, he gave a call to him. But he too was unavailable.

Joshua noticed all of his actions through Ivy's laptop. He could only make out that Tim had made a call to someone. Since the surveillance camera was quite a few feet away from his phone, he could not see to whom he had made the calls. However, Joshua not a novice in hacking. He was a genius when it came to any electronic devices. He had a software at home that could identify signals when a phone call was being made. 

All he had to do was connect Ivy's laptop to his home server and give access to the software which was on his computer and the control was in his hands. He gave the IP address and the software detected Joshua's location with ease. "Alvis, track all the phone calls withing ten meters from my location." He ordered his AI and the software started its work. Joshua just hoped that Tim would make another call before the software produced the result and he did just as he wanted, much to Joshua's relief.

Within five minutes, he got the results of the people who had made a phone call. There were not many, just nine. All he had to do was search for the caller ID and done. He scratched out all the names that were not suspicious and he ended with only one number. 'This is it? This is Tim's number.' He secretly cheered for himself. He had done a great job.

Not waiting even a minute, he hacked into his phone. But it took a great deal of effort. Tim had installed a highly encrypted software that made it impossible for normal hackers to hack his phone. It had a lot of firewall layers and even a small mistake would alert the person whose phone was being hacked. 

But Joshua took this up as a challenge. He carefully analyzed the encryption coding and applied his own style of decoding it. It was a very complex type of software. Only a pro could create something like this. He wondered who was the person who was as talented as him. After a lot of time of hard work, he could break through three layers and there were still four, much to his anguish.

He cracked his neck and stretched his hands. His back had gone stiff with all the work he had done in the past hour. He picked up the laptop, stretched his legs on the table, and placed it on his lap. "Now for the fourth layer." He started it and it was more difficult than the previous two layers. But he was not Joshua if could not solve any issues related to electronic devices. With great concentration and effort, he broke through the next three layers and only the seventh layer was left.

As soon as he starting typing his code, he noticed a glitch. Instead of hacking Tim's phone, the software was hacking Ivy's laptop in return.

"Damn it." He cursed loudly. The seventh layer had a reverse hacking code that would automatically start its work once the sixth layer was down. Joshua had not noticed this before. But he still had time. It would take at least four minutes for the reverse hack to complete and he had to stop it before the time ended.

He activated his special anti-hacking featured software. Though this would not stop the reverse hack completely, it would at least delay it and he would get more time to find a solution. After forty minutes of intense struggle, he managed to break through it completely and Tim's phone was hacked.

"Yes." He shouted loudly. For a second he had forgotten where was. On realization, he cursed his loud tongue and went back to work. But his voice had woken up Ivy from her slumber and she looked around dazed trying to see where the sound came from. Then she remembered that Joshua was in the living room and it was his voice.

'Did something happen to him?' She wondered. Fearing the worst, she jumped off the bed and ran to the living room, opening the door hastily with a loud bang.

"What happened?" She came out, panic clearly written on her face. Joshua, who was so focused on going through Tim's phone, had not heard the sound of the door and was startled when he heard Ivy's voice. He looked up to see a disheveled Ivy looked around in panic and he immediately shut the laptop. He did not want Ivy to see what he was doing.

"What happened?" He questioned back in confusion. He had completely forgotten that he had shouted a few seconds back. 

"You tell me." Ivy had not seen him close the laptop. So, she did not ask about it.

"I don't know."

"Then, why did you shout?" Ivy gave him an incredulous look. 'This man was unbelievable.'

"When did I shout?"

Ivy's jaw dropped. This man was so annoying. She was having a good sleep and this man destroyed it by shouting and now he was pretending as though he knew nothing. 'How irritating.'

"Just now. You shouted so loudly that even I heard it though I was asleep."

Joshua then remembered what he had done a few minutes back and he wanted to smack his head for his carelessness. He was almost done and the only thing left was to go through Tim's call logs and he would get the man who was behind Ivy, but he destroyed the chance big time by his own hands.

"Oh. I remember. I got a call from my secretary just now. She wanted to inform me that we have finished with our project. I became very excited and I shouted as I got carried away." He gave her a sheepish grin, making her narrow her eyes in anger. She did not say anything except for a huff and went to the kitchen.

Ivy poured herself a glass of water and downed it one go. "Idiot. Who does he think he is? Has he no idea how scared I was. Idiot. Stupid. Weirdo. Lunatic." She cursed loudly and kicked the refrigerator in anger thinking it to be him, only to yelp in pain. She leaned against the kitchen counter as she took deep breaths to subdue the pain. "He is such a pain in the ass." She started scolding him again.

Meanwhile, the man who she was scolding had no idea about it. He was busy in his own work. As soon as Ivy had left him alone, he had gone back to find out more from Tim's phone and he had found a lot of contacts. He narrowed the searched to those numbers that had been dialed after they had left him on the street. There were only two numbers.

After some searching, he found out that one of the numbers belonged to Jared Augustus and Tim had called him a lot of times in that time range. Joshua remembered who Jared was. He was the one who was behind Rachel. But he had no idea how he was related to Tim. He only knew that the man was dangerous as Noah had told him before.

He looked back to see if Ivy was anywhere nearby. Seeing that the coast was clear, he started analyzing the things. Tim belonged to the Vipers. He had known about it long back. But what he did not know was who their leader was. Even Noah did not know about the man behind those vicious people. But he had a hunch that it was Jared. Now that Tim was contacting Jared, it arose suspicion in his mind. 'What if he is the leader of the Vipers?'

"Ah." He sighed and tilted his head. 'But why is he behind Ivy? How did she offend him?' This was a question only Ivy could answer. He had to ask her about this. But if Jared was really the one whom he assumed to be then two of the women around him were in danger and he had to rise up his guards. This was a serious issue.

Before he could get lost in his thoughts again, Ivy came back. "Are you staying back?"

"What?"

"I need to prepare lunch. Tell me if you are staying back until lunch."

"If it is not a problem to you." Joshua instantly reminisced the taste of food and he started craving for more of it. Now that he had an opportunity, why would he let it go?

"Okay."