Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“We don’t have to do this right now. We could wait until morning.” Max stood in front of his desk with his arms crossed. He must’ve had a client meeting today because he was wearing a suit, though he’d discarded the tie.
He’d already put his jacket around Sylvie and brought her a cup of coffee, but she couldn’t stop trembling.
“No. I need to.” She rested her head against the cushion of Max’s couch. It was ten o’clock at night, and the windows were dark. She was exhausted and starving. And she still had so much work ahead of her.
A storm of emotions kept rolling through her. Terror at being under attack—both her person and her computer. Shame that she’d left herself vulnerable. Dismay at seeing Dominic yanked from the floor by officers in SWAT gear, as if he were the one who’d threatened them.
“Okay, then walk me through what happened earlier. Because I still don’t understand.”
Even she was still struggling to make sense of it. Sylvie forced herself to back up to the beginning.
“It started with my computer. I was on Crane’s network, running diagnostics on his security system.
I hadn’t been able to identify any anomalies in my code, and a scan for known malware hadn’t turned up anything either.
Then notifications started going off. My firewall had detected suspicious packets, information it didn’t recognize, trying to get into my system. ”
Sylvie had written the firewall herself. It was unique to her machine, not something that would run on the typical Bennett Security laptop. She preferred an extra sense of security, even with the headaches that came with it.
And thank god she did, because otherwise her computer wouldn’t have detected the intrusion.
“When exactly was the first sign that something was wrong?”
“I’ll have to check my logs. I’m not sure. I might’ve been…distracted.”
Max eyed her. “By what?”
“It’s not important.” She was never going to admit how monumentally stupid she’d been.
She’d have to create a mirror of her hard drive for analysis.
She needed to uncover exactly what sort of code had invaded her system.
But she suspected a bundled attack, one that could’ve compromised the Bennett Security intranet once she returned to the office.
It would’ve been a disaster, and she’d only narrowly avoided it.
If the attack had come a few minutes later, she would’ve been caught in an even worse position with Dominic. Maybe even naked and underneath him. She might’ve ignored her computer altogether.
“My best guess? Someone installed a back door in Crane’s home network that affected the security system.
He said the problem occurred mostly at night.
Maybe that’s when they were accessing his network, tracking what he’d been up to.
But when I connected my laptop, it must’ve triggered some sort of a notification on their end.
They tried to load their malware onto my system. ”
“You think this could’ve been an attack on us specifically? On Bennett Security?”
“Probably.” If these people had access to Dominic’s security system, they could’ve seen her on the video. There were cameras on the front door, inside the entryway, and along the exterior sides of the house.
“Our network here at headquarters would be a very attractive target,” Max said. “Especially for people like the Silverlake Syndicate.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” As Bennett’s resident cyber security expert, Sylvie had all sorts of useful tools black-hat hackers would love to get their hands on. Not to mention sensitive client information.
Max stopped his pacing and stared at her. “Wait a minute. Could Crane have had something to do with this? What if he made up the story about these ‘glitches’ to lure you—or some other employee—to his home so this malware could get onto our network?”
Nausea twisted through her. She didn’t want believe it.
If he’d truly lured her there to gain access to her laptop, then he’d been trying to seduce her as a distraction. Every single thing he’d said and done would’ve been pure calculation. But if Dominic had been playing her? She’d made it easy for him.
She’d claimed to hate him. But before the attack? She’d actually been starting to like the guy.
“Sylvie. I need an answer. Do you think Crane had something to do with this?”
What else could explain the perfect timing of this attack?
“It’s possible Crane set us up.”
And there was the shame again, crashing over her and threatening to pull her under.
Max closed his eyes. “Fuck. And I walked right into it.”
“So did I.”
He gripped the skin between his eyes. “Okay. Back up. What about the physical attack on Crane’s house? Clearly the timeline means something.”
“It has to. The Syndicate’s used similar techniques before. So we have to assume the same people were trying to gain access to my laptop and attack Crane’s house. They did try to shoot him.” Which weighed on the side of Crane having nothing to do with it.
“But did you see that happen? Did you see the gunman aiming for Crane?”
“No. I was upstairs with my laptop. They exchanged gunfire in the kitchen.”
“So you don’t actually know who shot at whom. Or if it was all just staged.”
“But that would mean that Maureen, his housekeeper, was in on it. I can’t see that happening.”
Yet Maureen had handled the whole thing pretty calmly. She’d barely seemed frightened at all. In the moment, Sylvie had assumed the woman was tough. She’d worked for Crane for two years, including the time he’d ruled the Syndicate, so she’d have to be.
But what did Sylvie truly know about either Maureen or Dominic? Almost nothing. All she knew was they’d both been kind to her today, though in extremely different ways. But kindness could be faked.
Which made her feel even sicker.
Now that the seed had been planted in her mind, it started to spread. Maybe the guy who’d fired into the kitchen intentionally missed. Even if Maureen was innocent of any deception, that didn’t absolve Dominic.
Max tapped his fingers against his desk. “At this point, we have to examine all possible explanations, including whether Crane’s behind it. But whoever’s responsible, I want to know what they were after and how much damage this might’ve caused.”
“I’m going to get onto my machine and start investigating. I’ll study every log, every packet of data, every clue they might’ve left behind. I’m going to find out who these people are and where they came from. You can be sure of that.”
She blew out a heavy breath. Her hands fidgeted, eager to be at her keyboard working so she didn’t feel so powerless.
Max came over and sat on the arm of the sofa. “I can bring someone else in on this if needed. I know this day’s been really rough.”
She didn’t want to dwell on the fear, or even on the uncertainty she felt about Crane’s motives. She just wanted to dive headfirst into her computer and find those bastards who’d tried to attack her inner sanctum.
“I don’t trust anyone with this but myself.” Not because she thought her team wasn’t loyal, but because their skills couldn’t rival hers. That wasn’t cockiness, it was just true.
From somewhere deep inside, she conjured a smile.
“All I need is that mirror drive, a secure internet connection, and your permission to use the company expense account. Because I’m going to order a shitload of takeout to get me through the next few hours.”
After Sylvie finished with Max, she called her cousin Ethan.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Ethan had no clue anything unusual had happened today. Sylvie often worked long hours, sometimes not getting home until the middle of the night. So her cousin had no reason to suspect anything could be wrong.
She’d managed to hold herself together while she talked to Max. But now she felt her composure slipping. “I was wondering if you’d had dinner yet. I was going to order Chinese, and I could really use a friend here with me.” She bit back a sob.
“Sylvie, honey, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“I’d love to explain it to you. But I can’t come home. That’s why I was hoping you could come here and share some pork buns with me?”
“Of course I will. But are you sure it’s okay? Are you supposed to let outsiders into your fancy secure building?”
Ethan had only visited the public areas of their headquarters. But Sylvie was in no mood to deal with restrictions. “I’m the boss of almost everybody here. And I don’t think even Max Bennett will deny me today.”
“Wow, that bad of a shitstorm?”
“Get over here so I can tell you.”
Half an hour later, they were eating fried rice, beef and broccoli, and steamed buns in the breakroom. Ethan had barely touched his serving. He’d been too shocked by what she’d described. And she hadn’t even mentioned anything that happened between her and Dominic before the attack had started.
“So now you have to figure out who did this?” Ethan asked. “How?”
“By tearing apart that hard drive and finding every bit of code that doesn’t belong.” She was going to send as much info as she could to her friends in the hacktivist community.
She’d made a lot of contacts over the years, though none of her friends shared their real-life identities.
Yet she still trusted them completely. Her friends would track down the people responsible.
Not just because they were loyal to her, but because they used their abilities to right the moral wrongs in this world whenever possible.
Sylvie was sure the people who’d come after her were on the wrong side.
Was Dominic one of them?
Ethan pushed a slice of beef around his plate. “I’m so sorry this happened.”
“Me, too.”