New beginning: Billionaire love story

Chapter 359 Thousand Problems

The past few days had been a whirlwind of chaos and frustration for Claire. Honestly, she was on the verge of losing her mind. First, there was the drama with Claudia-twice, no less. Then there was Lisa, followed by Alexander's nonsense.

Every single thing seemed to pile up, each issue more maddening than the last. Her head throbbed from the stress. Claire was sure that if one more problem came her way, she'd explode like a pressure cooker.

But there was one bright spot in all of it: Adrian. Dating him was probably the only thing keeping her from losing it entirely. No matter how insane everything else got, at least that part of her life was going right. That small piece of happiness made everything a little more bearable. At the moment, Claire was at Cryptonic, her little safe haven away from the madness of Metacortex. She'd had enough of being buried in work and dealing with people for a while. All she wanted was a moment of peace.

To clear her head, she decided to dive into one of her favorite pastimes-surfing the web and indulging in a bit of harmless hacking. Today, she was in the mood to create a little challenge, so she whipped up a complex firewall quiz and posted it online to see who would manage to break through it.

As she coded and set up the challenge, Claire felt an odd sense of calm wash over her. It had been a long time since she'd done something purely for fun like this. She was always so wrapped up in work, in meetings, in drama, that she rarely made time for her hobbies. But now? Now she was in her element. With a final keystroke, she leaned back in her chair, feeling the familiar thrill of having completed something just for herself.

She pulled up the dashboard and started monitoring how many people were already trying to crack her firewall. Comments flooded in almost immediately, and one in particular made her grin: "The Raven is back!" Ah, her old alias still had some weight in the hacker community. Everyone seemed excited to crack the code, eager to prove themselves worthy of the challenge she'd set up.

As she basked in this moment of peace, her phone rang. It was Matthew.

"Hey, Claire," he greeted, amusement lacing his voice. "Why the heck did you post a quiz?"

Claire chuckled. "I was bored," she admitted with a smirk. "And honestly? It's the only thing making me feel at ease right now."

Matthew laughed on the other end. "Of course you'd come up with something ridiculously complicated as your idea of fun."

Claire leaned back in her chair, spinning slowly as she spoke. "What can I say? I've got a weird way of relaxing."

"Yeah, no kidding." Matthew sounded more amused than surprised. "Anyway, how's the day off treating you? Enjoying some peace and quiet away from the circus?"

Claire laughed softly. "Oh, it's glorious. Speaking of which, how's work? You're surviving, I take it?"

Paperwork, meetings, more paperwork. I don't know how you do this

least bit surprised. "Hang in there. It's not fun, but it keeps the lights

"Why did you make me fill in for you

smiled. "Because you're the only one I trust with this stuff. If there's anyone I can count on, it's

so you trust me, huh?" He leaned back, propping his feet up on Claire's desk as if she were there to scold him. "Or is it because you just didn't want me tagging along on your

of the last few days. But then something on

leaning

the shift in her tone, perked up. "What's

narrowed as she read the data on her screen. "Someone...

straighter. "Wait, what?

Claire replied, tapping

out who had managed

insanely hard-like, really ha

anyone would solve

someone's either

a little frustrated. "I don't get it. This should've taken hours, if

to trace the hacker. "Hold on. I'm going to figure out who this

you know? I mean, Raven's kind of a legend, so

worked,

done this? And how? She was no stranger to talented hackers, but the speed which this person had

if they'd

It was

minutes, she paused, staring at the

it?" Matthew asked, sensing