Chapter 11 - Quinn
ELEVEN - Quinn
“Bro, what the hell has gotten into you?”
Rob comes around the corner with serious concern on his face, his brows scrunched together as he steps into my office and sits down on the other side of my desk.
He wasn't there when everything went down between me and the three morons, but I'm sure word traveled fast. His red button-up and black tie are still wrinkle-free even though we’re now sitting in my office after hours and the building has cleared out.
I had to call him to get him to come back to Obsidian, and after a few complaints he agreed.
I lean back in my chair behind my desk and drop the stack of papers I was reviewing before he came in. They land with a smack and spread out in front of me. “I don't know. It’s either nothing or everything.”
He scoffs. “Feels like everything. You've been working in the fancy wing for like, five minutes, and you're already wound up. The whole building was buzzing about you threatening Jon, Nick, and Stephen. Everybody was laughing because we all hate those assholes, but you risked it all over them disrespecting Miss Lucero. Are the two of you hooking up or something? If not, then you have to explain to me what the hell is going on, man. You usually try so hard to not act out like that.”
I twist my lips together and shrug, because I have no idea how to answer.
He's right. I've always tried to keep my emotions in check, even when they want to spiral out of control.
But something was different today. I can't explain it.
Seeing Jon and his crew treat Olivia that way with no one there to support her just set me off.
As much as I try not to be like Dad, his words about how to treat women still resonate with me, so as far as I'm concerned, I was justified, and I still am.
“Like I said, I don't know, man,” I reply. “I've been caught off guard by the craziness up here, and the way they treat Olivia just set me off.”
“But why though? Because you like her?”
“Well … it’s deeper than just that.”
“But that’s part of it,” Rob says as a statement instead of a question.
I sigh and frown at him. I can't do too much, though, because he's right. “A small part of it. The bigger part is that it’s a trio of men ganging up on a woman. Would you stand by and watch three dudes talk shit to a single woman?”
“Well …”
“What if the woman was Sandra?” I ask, making it personal to him.
Rob’s brows raise. “So, now we’re comparing the new CEO to my wife?”
I suck my teeth. “No, I'm comparing her to a woman you know personally, which I shouldn't have to do just to get you to understand that a woman shouldn't be treated that way by men. But whatever works, I guess.”
Rob scoffs. “Okay. I see what you're trying to do. I get it, but there's a big difference between the woman I'm married to and the woman you just met. I'm just saying.”
“Of course there is … but there isn’t. Men shouldn't gang up on women. Full stop. So, I did something about it, and I’ll take it even further if they do it again. I'm not fucking playing.”
Rob shakes his oversized head in disbelief.
“Wow, bro. So your way of handling it is to fight them for her?” he asks with entirely too much amusement on his face.
“I don't care if it makes sense to you. That’s just how I feel. She says she can't fire them because she needs their expertise or whatever. I disagree, but since I can't make her fire them, I’ll just check them all. If she doesn't want to step on toes, it’s fine. I’ll stomp their fucking necks.” I say without a care.
I stare across the table at my friend and wait for him to say something slick.
Usually the words are right on the tip of his tongue, but he just shakes his head at me, and I'm not sure which is worse. “Stop judging me, Rob.”
“I can't,” he replies with a chuckle. “Does she know you're feeling her like this?”
I shake my head. “I'm not feeling her like anything. It’s just the right thing to do.”
“It’s right to risk your job for a stranger?”
“To me it is.”
“So this is a situation where you're willing to do the right thing in order to achieve the right goal.”
I nod my head and point at Rob. “Oh, you're finally getting it.”
“Bro, she's going to think you're crazy.”
“That’s fine. I don't care about any of that. They pissed me off, so now they have to deal with the effects of that. That’s why I need you to help me with this fucking breach.
I can't sit back and watch Obsidian burn to the ground with all of us still inside. We have to figure this shit out, and I know your department has been working on it but I want to get my arms around this myself.”
“Of course you do,” Rob says with a roll of his eyes. “Alright, what do you need?”
I pick up the papers on my desk and show them to Rob. “This is Annette’s report from the finance department. It really doesn't give us anything to go on in the way of the hack itself.”
“What makes you think it’s a hack anyway?”
“Just a gut feeling.”
“Ah, a gut feeling from the son of a hacker. Okay, if the finance report doesn't help, what else is there?”
I drop the papers—still annoyed that they're useless—and lean back in my chair, exasperated. “Well, that’s the problem. I don't know. Without doing something illegal and hacking our own system, there might not be another way to find out anything.”
“Well shit. You're not thinking of doing that, right? That's the type of thing that got your dad caught up.” I cut my eyes over to him, and he immediately responds to my demeanor. “Q. Come on, man. No way.”
“My dad got arrested for credit card fraud, not breaking into a cybersecurity system to access information.”
“Okay, but it’s still illegal.”
“Maybe, but I need to know what’s going on, and that’s the only way to do it.”
“I thought you were trying not to be like Quincy. If threatening your supervisor didn't get you fired, hacking the system definitely will. Use your head, Q.”
I nod slowly, but not because I'm agreeing with Rob. I'm agreeing with the dark voice in my head. The one telling me to ignore him and use the skills my father taught me to solve the puzzle.
“I am,” I reply to Robb, then I swivel my chair toward my computer and start typing.
“Q, what are you doing?” he asks, but I don't even look at him.
“What does it look like?” I reply, still typing.
Rob goes silent as I try to backdoor the Obsidian Cyber system, trying to exploit loopholes in authentication procedures designed to keep unauthorized users out of the system.
It’s a simple little attack my dad taught me when I was seven.
I know it’s illegal, but I'd be lying if I said there isn't something about it that feels … good. It’s like my DNA is being awakened by giving into the darkness passed down to me from my dad. He’d be thrilled to know I'm doing this. Maybe that’s why I like it.
It’s nostalgic. Unfortunately, I stop typing and lean back in my seat with a sigh.
Breaking into Obsidian’s system isn't as easy as it looks.
Rob finally stops shaking his head in disbelief and asks, “What’s the matter?”
“The Obsidian security protocol is solid,” I reply, my eyes still on my screen.
“If I keep going, it’s going to send off an alert and shut me out completely.
Maybe I'm out of practice, but I don't see how anyone could get past this protocol to start making changes in the operating accounts. Someone had to really know what they were doing. Like … they had to know this system specifically in order to do this.”
Rob and I exchange a look, both of us thinking the same thing, but then a memory comes back to me that sends me reeling.
“Well, something tells me you're going to have more to deal with the longer you're in charge.”
Jon’s henchman, Stephen Cohen, said this to Olivia right before she walked out of the conference room with tears in her eyes.
It didn't stand out to me when he said it because I was so focused on wanting to stand up and defend Olivia, but it sticks out like a red rose in a sea of white now.
My brows draw together as I think about it. Then I remember something else.
“This breach was a big deal, and I've got a feeling that even more could go wrong soon …”
“Motherfucker,” I whisper to myself as dots begin to connect in my mind, slowly forming a picture.
This ridiculous statement was uttered by none other than Jon himself, and I remember wondering why he would say something like that out of the blue.
It was almost as if he knew something else was going to happen after the first breach, and that’s just not possible.
Unless.
“Damn man, you good?” Rob asks as he gawks at me. “You look like you're about to shit on yourself.”
I'm too rattled by my thoughts to even laugh. “Maybe I am,” I reply, to which Rob grimaces, but I don't care.
“Eww. What the hell? What’s the matter with you?” he asks.
“I don't even want to say it,” I answer. “At least, not without proof. Humor me for a second while I work this out. Since Obsidian’s threat analysis program is always set to high, you can’t even attempt to hack the system without it setting off an alert.
So, the only way to get inside and do anything without setting it off would be to lower the threat analysis program and make your moves while the system isn't as sensitive. You following me?”
Rob nods as wrinkles scatter across his forehead. “Yeah, I'm with you.”
“Good. Now tell me, did your department check to see if the threat analysis for the company was lowered when they were doing the internal investigation for the Knight breach?”
Rob shakes his head. “No, because the DAV was administered via the email link, remember?”
I nod, my brain working in overdrive. “Right. So, no one has checked on that?”
“No,” he says with a shrug. “Plus we would need administrative approval to even check that.”
“Administrative approval?”
“Yeah. Obsidian uses its own program to protect its assets, and that program has administrators at the top who can control how it functions, just like any other client of Obsidian.”
“Who are the administrators?” I ask, breathing a little heavier as the picture starts to become clearer for me, and I know that I'm getting close to the answer I've been on the hunt for.
Rob shrugs again. “Not sure. I don't have access to that kind of information, but I assume the people at the top.”
“You mean at the top, like, the executive wing?”
“Probably,” Rob answers, then I start moving again.
I swing my body back over to the computer and begin typing, signing into my new company account as the cybersecurity executive as quickly as I can, and clicking my mouse all over the place.
My fingers have lightning in them as I click and press keys, rummaging through as many options as I can find, hoping that my theory is correct.
When I hit an area that requires executive clearance from Olivia, I use my laptop to run a brute force attack, trying every possible combination of letters, numbers, and special characters until the correct password is found.
It’s highly illegal, and I'm sure Olivia would be pissed about me hacking her account, but I ignore the part of me that cares about that and do what I have to do to get in.
Once I'm in her account, I find exactly what I'm looking for.
When I see it, I freeze, my heart turning into a block of ice and the blood in veins going completely still as I stare at the monitor and the list of information displayed on it.
“Honestly Q, if you need to go take a shit, I suggest you do it, because you're starting to worry me with these pained facial expressions,” Rob jokes, but when I turn my monitor toward him so that he can view the screen, his smile vanishes as his eyes widen.
“What the hell? I know that doesn't say what I think it says. Is that Olivia’s name at the top? Are you in her account, man?”
“Yeah, but don't focus on that,” I say, my smile growing as wide as my desk.
“This is a list of every administrator account that has accessed the security protocols for Obsidian in the last two weeks. You can see that the list has the same name on it for the most part, because Olivia was the only person checking to see if everything was up to standard at the start of her work day, which is why every entry has the same timestamp. But yesterday has two names.”
“Olivia Lucero in the morning,” Rob says, reading the screen with eyes as big as paper plates.
“And Jon Reid at eleven thirty at night,” I say, finishing for him.
“Jon lowered the threat analysis at his command station at eleven thirty. The breach and subsequent transactions happened from an unknown location in the middle of the night, via an untraceable IP address. The time of the transaction is listed on page one of Annette’s financial report.
” I lift Annette’s paperwork and hold it up for Rob to see.
“What time does it say the transfer happened?”
“Eleven-forty-seven at night,” he answers.
I laugh, then point to the monitor. “And what time does it say the threat analysis program was raised by Jon Reid’s administrator account?”
Rob covers his mouth and speaks through his fingers in astonishment. “Midnight.”
With a satisfied exhale, I drop the papers and straighten out my monitor, my mission finally accomplished, illegality be damned.
“Right. He lowered the threat analysis at eleven-thirty, hacked the system with its weakened security, transferred half a million dollars to an offshore account at eleven-forty-seven, then raised the threat analysis again to avoid setting off any alerts at midnight and covering his tracks.”
Rob sits back in his chair with his mouth agape, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can't fucking believe what I'm hearing. Jon is trying to bring down Obsidian?”
“Yeah, but it’s bigger than just Obsidian,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“He wanted to be CEO and he's pissed that he didn't get the job,” I reply. “So he isn't just trying to take down Obsidian. He’s trying to take down Olivia.”