Blackmailed - Chapter 6

 

Chapter 6

Three days pass. Life settles back into its grooves—or something pretending to be them. I wake, shower, shave, and drive the same streets I’ve driven for years. The muscle memory of habit fills the hours between dawn and dark.

By the third morning, the world almost feels right again. Or maybe I’ve just convinced myself it does.

The office hums the way I like it—steady and quiet. Server rack in the corner breathing in blue light, routers humming their low electrical chant, monitors casting reflections on the walls. The faint smell of dust and ozone.

Thirty years I’ve been in this world—IT, data, infrastructure, security. Started in the early days when the internet still looked like a frontier. I owned a quarter of a Microsoft partner firm once, sold my share three years back. Now I run my own little outfit. Small clients, small contracts. The kind that keep my mind sharp and my soul uncluttered. I pick my projects—churches, schools, nonprofits—teaching cyber security as mission work.

A quiet life.  Until tonight.  As the Teams used to say, the only easy day was yesterday.

At 7:23 p.m. CST, my phone dings. Unknown number. Three words:

Check your email.

And one attached photo.  I open it.  It’s me.  Lying half-naked on that motel bed, head turned toward the wall, the cheap lamp bleeding light across my shoulder.  My pulse spikes. I stare at it, feeling that cold, hollow slide inside the chest that comes when something old and bad wakes up.

I thumb open the email app.  One new message. No sender name. Just a nonsense string of letters and numbers ending in a domain I don’t recognize—some dead-end Eastern European suffix.

Subject line: Hello pervert.

I click.

The body is a wall of text, written in that half-broken English that tells me I’m dealing with someone fluent in machines but not humanity.

Hello pervert, I’ve sent this message from your own Microsoft account.
 I want to inform you about a very bad situation for you. However, you can benefit from it, if you act wisely.
 I’ve recorded many pictures and videos with this blonde hooker. You look really cozy with her. I like how you let her have her way with you. You are an old pervert.
 I doubt you’d want your friends, family and co-workers to know about it. However, I can do it in a few clicks.
 Every number in your contact list will suddenly receive these videos – on WhatsApp, on Telegram, on Instagram, on Facebook, on email – everywhere. It will sweep away your life. But especially your wife, Sandy!
 Have you heard of Pegasus? This is a spyware program that installs on computers and smartphones and allows hackers to monitor the activity of device owners. It provides access to your webcam, messengers, emails, call records, etc. It works well on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows.
 I guess you already figured out where I’m getting at. So you know by now, I do have all your contacts and their info.
 If you do not want your life ruined, you will start sending me 500.00 per month, to this account.

Attached: six images. Two short videos.

I force myself to look.  It’s me. Same room. Same bed. Bare-chested, half-draped in that cheap hotel blanket. There’s motion in the edge of the frame—someone else’s arm, pale, female—but her face never shows.  Each photo framed with surgical precision. No context. Just enough to burn reputation.  They were careful. Controlled.

I close the window, sit back, and let out a long, slow breath.  So this is the play.  The girl wasn’t random. The motel wasn’t coincidence. The blackout wasn’t mercy.  They staged the entire thing.

But here’s the mistake—they picked me.  I’ve lived and breathed IT for thirty years. I’ve taught cybercrime for half that. They think they’re predators. They’re amateurs swimming with a shark.

I close the email and open the terminal on my air-gapped laptop—the one that’s never touched the outside world. Its hum feels like company.

First step: headers. Always the headers.

I pull the raw source from my inbox, scroll through the gibberish of routing strings and authentication codes.

Return path: three proxies, last hop in Latvia. Before that, one in Poland, then Romania. A chain of dirty mirrors—each one a compromised relay, each pointing at the next. But that’s where they get sloppy.  The third hop—Romania—has a time stamp mismatch: 03:23 GMT.

I follow it backward, one layer at a time. Each IP opens a small story: one belongs to a hijacked WordPress blog, another to a private mail server that was abandoned last year. The last, the one they thought was clean, routes to a U.S.-based host.

Not Bulgaria. Not Eastern Europe.  The final node sits right here, on home soil.  I sit forward, jaw tightening, eyes on the terminal.  “Got you,” I whisper.

It’s a small colocation data center in Texas, one of the cheap ones that rents rack space by the square foot. The IP resolves to a block owned by a shell company that’s changed names three times in the last year. But the server is still active—listening, waiting, alive.

Whoever’s running this routed the traffic overseas to make it look foreign, then looped it back stateside. They wanted to look like ghosts, but they left fingerprints.

I run a whois lookup—registrant data scrubbed, of course—but the nameserver references an internal MX relay in Chicago. That’s my city.

The ghost trail ends in my own backyard.  I feel the corners of my mouth pull into a slow, quiet smile.  They’re not untouchable. They’re here.

I pull a notebook toward me and start jotting down the key fragments: relay hops, timestamps, IP blocks, checksum patterns. Every detail matters. The system might be obfuscated, but I can unwind it. It’s like following the path of smoke back to the fire.

Outside, the streetlights hum, their glow leaking through the blinds in soft gold lines. The world beyond the glass looks calm, but I know better now.

I sit there, tracing the network routes on the screen, eyes darting between addresses and ports. Each one a breadcrumb.

Someone built a script—probably an off-the-shelf PHP mailer patched into a hijacked SMTP relay. They automated the extortion letter, changed the language just enough to personalize it, and triggered a send batch. But mine wasn’t random. The photos prove that. They found me before the script ever ran. This is not a generic mass sextortion scam. These people are targeting specific people. I am probably not the only one.

I copy the header file to an encrypted drive, then shut down the mail client. The laptop’s fan slows. The room grows still. They think they’ve got control. They think I’m scared.

I stare at the monitor, the reflection of my own face faint in the dark glass. I can almost see the other side—the person who hit “send,” sitting somewhere behind a screen, probably with coffee gone cold, thinking they’re invisible.  They’re not.  No one is.

My fingers drum on the desk. My brain runs the steps ahead—triangulate the relay, map the endpoint, locate the node inside the States. I don’t have the exact location yet, but I know the terrain. I can feel the direction in the numbers.  They’re close.  And that changes everything.

The air feels heavy, electric, like a storm crouched on the edge of breaking. I stand, stretch my shoulders, and look around my office one last time. Everything is in its place.  My tools. My weapons.  They wanted five hundred a month.  They’ll pay more than that before I’m done.

I close the laptop, slide the lock on my office door, and let the silence wrap around me. The hum of the servers keeps time with my heartbeat.

Somewhere in this country, someone’s about to find out what it feels like to blackmail the wrong man.  I lean back in my chair, eyes steady, pulse calm.  Now to begin the counter.  And, I decided I need to find out who else they are targeting.  See if I can help them. Interrupt this little scam. It is time to help those who cannot help themselves. I bet there are many others.  My first task, will be to try to figure out how many, who, where they are, how to reach them, and warn them.

 

 

I sat at my desk until my lower back started to protest. The chair had a complaint ready—an old, familiar creak—and the hour had a weight to it I couldn’t shrug off. The phone lit the dark when it rang; Sandy’s name blinked on the screen. The clock on the wall said 8:57. I let it ring twice and answered on the third.

“Hi, honey,” I said, trying to smooth the edges of my voice.

“Mike?” She sounded relieved and tired at once. “You okay? You’re late.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll be there in twenty. I’ll explain when I get home.”

There was a small intake of breath—half relief, half the disbelief that still lives with her after everything. “Alright. Be careful.”

“I will.” My stomach made a sound like an honest confession. “I’m starving. What do we have I can heat up quick?”

“We have some leftover lasagna from last night,” she said. “I can just microwave it. It’ll be fine. There is enough for both of us, I have not eaten either.  I was too worried.”

“I am sorry I mumble, and That’ll do.” I pictured the ceramic dish in the sink, the edges already browned from yesterday, the sauce settled and forgiving. “Be home in twenty, hon.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you.”

I gathered the laptop and my battered, road worn briefcase, carried for 30 years of consulting, tucking the printed frame from Joey’s into a folder. No point making the kitchen a crime scene. I glanced around the office—rack lights blinking their steady, indifferent rhythm—then locked the door and walked out into the night. The drive was short, the streets slick with the after-rain residue, lights reflecting in the puddles like tiny, indifferent stars. My mind cycled through what I’d already done: headers pulled, relays traced, the endpoint in the States circled on my mental map. The email had been clever enough to sting—personalized enough to feel real—but clumsy enough in its routing that I had a trail. That meant options. That meant leverage.

I pulled up outside the old, remodeled but modest brick two-flat townhome we own in Bridgeport and killed the engine. For a moment I just sat, letting the van cool and the silence settle. Then I climbed out and went up the short steps to the door, keys in hand.

The smell hit me when I opened the door—garlic and tomato and melted cheese, yesterday’s lasagna held in the warm hush of the microwave. Sandy was at the small table setting plates, moving with the quiet competence of someone who’d perfected this routine. She didn’t ask for a recount; she didn’t need one. She already knew the skeleton of the story from three days ago—the ride home from Joey’s, the blackout, the ER, the toxicology results, Steve being called, the security footage. Tonight she only needed the new facts from tonight: someone had escalated to extortion.  That could wait, first we eat.

I dropped my bag by the chair and kissed her quick on the mouth. “You smell good,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. She glanced up at me, a brief softening that made the weight in my chest light for a second.

We ate quietly. The lasagna was reheated—edges a touch chewier than fresh but still generous, the sauce thick where it had settled overnight. We passed plates and forked bread into the sauce, the small rituals of married life steadying us. Sandy’s eyes kept flicking to me, the question poised but patient. I let the fork do the talking for a while, letting the steam and the sound of the plates fill the space where the explanation would go.

When I set my fork down and wiped my mouth, she looked up. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me the new thing, Mike. Don’t go back through everything. I know the old stuff.”  I reached for the laptop and opened it on the table between the plates, the screen throwing a soft blue across the napkin.

“Tonight I got a text and an email,” I said. “The text said check your email. The email was a sextortion—classic template, but personalized. They attached photos and short silent videos from the motel room. They threatened to send the files to everyone in my contact list unless we started paying five hundred dollars a month.”

Sandy’s hand went to her mouth for a second. Her face compressed—not with shock so much as the particular hurt that comes when a promise between two people is threatened by a stranger. She already understood how dangerous the optics could be. “Did they actually send the footage?” she asked.

“They did,” I said. “But I won’t show you the images. real enough to be credible—angles from the motel, my body, cropped so they never show her face—but I’m telling you, I was not awake when that was filmed. I was drugged.” I let the words sit on the table between us. There was no dramatic flourish—just the fact. Sandy nodded slowly. She’d heard that before. This time the new part landed: “They also included details about some of my accounts, and they claimed to have access to them. I seriously doubt that. It’s a scare tactic. Classic sextortion. They routed the email through a chain of overseas proxies to mask origin, but it dead-ends on a host in the U.S. I can see the trail. It’s obfuscated, but the endpoint is here.”

Sandy closed her eyes briefly and let out the half-exhale of someone counting off facts to stay steady. “So it’s not just an automated scam,” she said. “They have the pictures. They think they can make it stick.”

“They think so,” I said. “But they don’t know who they chose. They don’t know what kind of trouble they started.” I left the boast unspectacular, not because it wasn’t true but because this wasn’t the time to preen. It was time to plan. “I traced the headers. Multiple relays—Latvia, Poland, Romania—typical dirty mirrors. But the last hop routes back to a colocation in Texas. The shell company that registered the server points to a nameserver with an MX relay tied to a Chicago host. It smells like an operation trying to look international. They’re using proxies to throw investigators off, and they assumed that would be enough. It isn’t.”

Her hand squeezed mine. “Are you going to call the police?” she asked.

“I’m not ruling it out,” I said. “We can involve them formally and get a subpoena, but I don’t want to hand the adversary the timeline if there’s a short window on the files. I want to control how evidence is handled. I’m doing forensics on the headers and the send mechanism now. If I can locate the server, we’ll give the cops the coordinates with a clean chain. If this is a single script kiddy, it’ll be quick. If it’s a group, it’s more complicated.”

“Besides,” I added slowly, “I seriously doubt that I am the only victim.  I need to see if I can track down any other victims they are preying on, and if I can help.

She just nods slowly.

She asked the practical question next, the one that had already been sitting at the back of her throat. “What are you going to do about us? About the kids? About our name?”

“We’re going to control what we can,” I said. “I want you away from here for a bit. It’s not about running; it’s about minimizing risk. Your sister in St. Louis can take you in for a couple of weeks. I’ll cover everything—train tickets, whatever you need. I’ll keep you updated, and I’ll tell only the people who absolutely need to know.”

She swallowed. “You want me to leave?”

“I do,” I said. “Not forever, just until I either neutralize this or we get a clear picture that it’s safe. If they’re talking about simple extortion, it’ll be done fast. If it’s something more organized, I don’t want you here while I poke the hornet’s nest.”

She blinked, anger flashing for the first time—not at me, not exactly, but at the situation. “You can’t just—” she began.

“I know,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t necessary. I have people I can call on here—Steve, that old jarhead would charge hell with me if I needed him, also a couple of reliable contacts in the Chicago Police department from some of my consulting there, and  Joey. I’m not going in blind. I can set up a buffer, rotate keys, lock down accounts, get forensic images from the mail server and preserve the chain. If it looks like the wrong kind of group, I’ll bring in a pro for the heavy lifting. But you staying here puts you at risk.” I watched her process. The fight in her eyes softened into something like acceptance because she trusts the competence she remembers in me.

Finally she nodded. “Alright,” she said, voice small. “I’ll call Lisa tomorrow and get the train on Thursday.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ll make the arrangements tonight. I’ll be in touch all the time.”

She reached across the table and smoothed my sleeve—simple, domestic, mortal gestures that feel bigger than anything in the digital war we were suddenly in. We finished the dishes together with an efficiency born of habit—stacking plates, rinsing pans, sliding the lasagna dish into the fridge for when she came back. The kitchen smelled like basil and lemon soap and the last small comforts of the day.

Later, in the bedroom, the city light through the blinds painted the ceiling in tight bands. Sandy’s breathing settled beside me. She fell asleep quickly—not a hard sleep, but a trusting one. I lay awake with the list in my head: lock down the accounts, rotate passwords and keys, isolate any devices that may have synced with the motel Wi-Fi, queue subpoenas if I needed them, run a thread on the relay chain and cross-reference the hosting block with local ISP logs and payment trails. I thought of Joey and the frame printout in my folder. I thought of the partial plate on the Blazer. I thought of Steve waiting at St. Matthew’s later that week. Plans stacked and clicked into place like gears.

The apartment hummed around us—refrigerator cycles, distant traffic. I could hear her breathing deepen, slow and even. My back ached less now, dulled by fatigue and a certain, gritty focus. Outside, the city kept working its long, indifferent machinery. Inside, the list of tasks became a steady metronome, grounding me. I settled into the rhythm and let my eyes close, arranging the next moves like pieces on a board.

Sandy’s breathing stayed even and quiet as she slept. My mind did not. It moved through contingencies, contact names, a schedule for the next forty-eight hours, a plan to make sure no one else got dragged into this without knowing the truth. I rested my hand lightly on her shoulder until she stirred and murmured, then lay still, alert and ready for the next step.