47. Dom
DOM
This was my favorite time to be in the office.
Everyone had gone home, desperate to be out of here early on Friday for a weekend upstate. Slamming my laptop closed, I slipped out of my office and walked across the carpeted floor toward the elevator.
From my trouser pocket, I grabbed the keycard I’d ripped off one of Gabe’s lackey’s desks. It had been too easy. He’d left the card attached to a lanyard at the edge of the glass tabletop.
All I’d had to do was tell him Gabriel needed him to grab a Diet Coke for him from the cafeteria.
He’d taken off and I slipped the card into my pocket.
Fucking morons.
His idiocy worked in my favor. I selected the basement in the elevator and let the doors close behind me.
It was time to find these files. I was hoping Leo would be wrong, that there wouldn’t be some hidden server disconnected from the rest of the system. But I needed to know, especially if it could be the difference in getting Isaac out of Zeus or having his board find a way to protect him.
Once the elevator doors swung open, I slipped out and toward the server room. From my phone, I used the remote access Teresa had set me up with to disable cameras in the hallway.
The server room was behind glass doors, locked by a keypad and left unattended after business hours. If I swiped in with my card, security would have known it was me that entered after hours.
And Isaac would know what I was searching for.
Swiping Derek’s card kept me safe. A green light and a click was all it took to shove the door open.
Inside, the room was warm. Tower after tower of blinking lights and the low hum of churning computer fans filled the server space.
Each bank was full of thousands of vital financial documents, pieces of data that could change world markets, secured in the basement of our building where we could protect them from cyber attacks.
From the end of each row, I grabbed the file guide. Each tower was labeled with its purpose, some of them were more vague than others.
I knew these would be a waste of time. Anything that was wifi enabled would be a bust. I’d already spent years hunting for incriminating files buried in the bowels of these servers. But only the ones I could access from the safety of my office.
I marched to the back of the server room, the warmth of the computers growing heavier as I reached older tech. The farther I walked, the clunkier the servers became.
Until I reached one that was beige in color, with just a few LED lights. It had to be at least twenty years old — the worn plastic casing a clear enough indicator.
What really caught my eye was the lack of ethernet cable in the back. Unlike every other serve in the room, this one was only plugged into power.
It was exactly what Teresa had suspected it looked like. Those Laniidae girls may have been young but they were smart and prepared for any outcome.
Looking over my shoulder and down the line of servers, I tried to keep an ear out for an intruder. It was unlikely but security liked to do their rounds. With Isaac’s increased suspicions, it was possible that he’d have added the server room to their route.
I needed to move fast.
Kneeling down, I grabbed a USB from my pocket and plugged it into the first slot I could see. Once it was in, a green light on its case blinked before going steady. I pulled open my phone, connecting to the built in network I’d put on the flashdrive.
I clicked on the cache of files.
I’m in.
Millions of files appeared inside the remote access.
I couldn’t pull anything off the server, knowing that it would raise red flags. And I wasn’t going to put any of us in danger. Like I’d told Leo, I wasn’t willing to risk the mission for this goose chase.
But if I could access the files from afar, I could hunt through them for anything useful. And if we needed to make duplicates we could do that.
I’d been hoping that Leo was barking up the wrong tree — not wanting to believe that anyone else’s parents were as monstrous as my father. And maybe that just one of us had nothing to do with this sick and twisted web.
But The Oracle had been plotting for more than a decade which meant that those odds had shrunk to near zero.
All of us had been brought together for one reason, one greater purpose.
Leo wasn’t an exception.
Scrolling through them on my phone, I clicked into a random folder, labeled The Island. My brow furrowed as I tried to make sense of the files names. Almost all of them were unlabeled, just generically named after whatever screenshot number it was.
I found one that looked short from the thumbnail and opened it.
Quick scan was all it took.
The Major is onto something.
The email read simply:
ID,
Did you get the girls for tonight? Not coming without them.
- GC
Shit.
I opened another.
Isaac,
Want copies of those pictures for my private collection. Send please.
- LK
Fucking bastards. All of them.
How long had all of this filth been down here, right under my nose?
My face flushed with anger as I closed my phone and unplugged the USB. The malware was implanted inside and any trace that I was here had to be removed. I’d still be able to access the files from home. And that’s all I came here for.
As I walked myself out of the server room, checking every corner before proceeding, I felt a burning in my stomach. I’d been The Oracle’s inside agent for years and had never considered looking for something like this.
How much trouble could I have saved all of us? Would it have been enough to take Isaac down, to spare Kiera all of this pain?
I would have done anything to take these last few years from her.
She could have quietly inherited her shares after my father was arrested, could have taken the check while I kept control.
Never would have seen what we do in The Hollow. Or our warehouse.
There was no shaking off my fury. Instead, I walked myself to a back staircase and pushed open a service door to the street. A rush of evening dinner-goers zipped past as I tried to catch my breath.
But the hot spring air was trapped by city concrete.
This was the most dangerous thing I’d done. To be worth the risk to our mission, whatever was inside those cache’s of files would have to be enough to take down Isaac and ruin his public image for good.
Beyond that, I hoped that its contents wouldn’t break my Viper or Major Callahan. I needed their heads straight. I needed them to be okay. For my sake as much as theirs.