Chapter 11 #2
I raise an eyebrow. “You're not sure?” My voice turns seductive. I have no idea where that came from. Maybe it's because I was trapped in the elevator with him, and felt like I was getting to know him.
The skin around his eyes tightens. My breath hitches as I brace myself for a cold rebuke. But he says nothing. Instead he watches me a little too closely, almost like he doesn't know what to make of me, or how to be around me.
“Everything that runs Knight Enterprises passes through this room.”
I look around calmly. “Including the glitches?”
His Adam's apple bobs, but once again, he doesn't say anything.
Stop with the lame jokes.
“What sort of issues are you experiencing?” I ask, before he goes ahead and fires me.
“Minor things mostly,” he says. “Employees temporarily losing access to systems they should be able to access. Credentials being revoked without authorization. Two programmers were locked out of the dev server last week.”
“Nothing catastrophic. Nobody's stolen data. Nobody's brought down a server. It seems to be just low-level stuff at the moment.” He wipes a hand across his brow. “But that’s the problem,” he says, glancing at me.
“Individually, none of it is serious. Together, it suggests someone's messing around in our systems, and we can't figure out why.”
I nod, already mapping it out in my head.
“I’ll need access to your authentication logs, user permission structures, and any recent security patches or updates. If there’s a pattern, it’ll be in there. I’ll also want to run a controlled access test—see how your system behaves under pressure.”
“All the issues so far have been minor,” he insists, dismissively.
“That's not how your father sees it.”
He presses his lips together.
I need to get this off my chest. Clear the air. If we're going to be professional then I at least need to say it out loud. “You hate that your father hired me.”
His eyes snap to mine. “I hate that he went behind my back.”
We stare at one another in silence. I already know there's more going on here than simply tech issues. Matteo's issues with his father run far deeper than a disagreement over hiring me.
“We haven't lost any data,” he says.
“That may be, but what about the next time you get hit? These things won't stop. You know I'm right.”
I love the way his jaw muscle tightens. I love the way I've managed to rile him. He seems to be a little too dismissive about it all. But it feels almost like someone's playing with them.
Not doing any serious damage, but enough to get noticed. Enough to cause a stir. Like they're testing boundaries or sending a message. I step closer to one of the racks and study the monitoring screen, letting my eyes scan the data instead of simply reading it.
“The symptoms don’t fit,” I say.
Matteo narrows his eyes at me. “You’ve been here five minutes.”
I shrug. “Five minutes was enough.”
“Meaning?”
“Permissions issues, revoked credentials, altered logs. Maybe they're unrelated, but they don't feel unrelated.” I've spent years looking for patterns hidden inside noise. I've broken into systems like this before. Not that he needs to know that.
A timestamp catches my eye and I lean closer. Most people would never notice it. Most people aren’t looking for inconsistencies.
I follow the sequence of entries down the screen.
Interesting. The order feels wrong. I tilt my head, tracing the chain of events again. “This doesn't make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” Matteo shifts closer to me, causing me to lose focus for a split second, until I force myself to concentrate. I point at the monitor.
“This user action occurs here.” I tap the first entry. “But the system response appears before it.”
“And?”
“That's backwards.” I scroll through several more lines. “Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a synchronization issue between systems.” My eyes narrow. “But if it isn't, something may be altering the order of events after they're recorded.”
Matteo folds his arms. “My engineers already reviewed that.”
I would have expected nothing less. “Did they check the system logs?”
His brow creases, but he doesn't look as defensive this time. More like he's thinking.
“They focused on user activity, didn’t they?” I continue. “Access reports. Authentication logs. Permission changes.” I glance back at the screen. “But if something is happening underneath that layer, those reports won’t necessarily tell you what’s causing it. They’ll only tell you the symptoms.”
Silence stretches between us.
It's the first time since I arrived that he looks at me like I might actually know what I'm talking about. But I’m used to this. Being a woman in a male-dominated field, I've had to prove I'm smarter.
“You’ve done this before,” he says, slowly.
My muscles stiffen, just for a second. The last thing I need is for this guy to dig around in my past.
“Security audits?” I almost roll my eyes. “Sure I have. All the time.”
He inhales a breath, and stares blankly at me, as if he’s thinking about something. “If someone's inside our system, we’ll find them.”
I turn to him, chin lifted in defiance. “If they’re good, they already know we’re looking.”
The look he gives me has changed. The skepticism is still there, but it’s laced with a glimmer of admiration.
Maybe even respect.
I think I've done enough.
He turns his back to the system. A few seconds pass. “You’ll report to me while you’re here.”
“I know. Your father already said that.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks.
“And don’t touch anything without my approval.”
“Anything?” My inner vixen sneaks back out. Fact, I've not been around a sexy guy for a long time. Matteo will be the unraveling of me if I'm not careful.
He ignores me and steps out of the server room, and onto the middle of the floor. Without warning, he loudly announces, “Listen up everyone. I'd like to introduce you to Elizabeth Raven. She's an external consultant who will be working here for a while.”
A murmur of “hi's” floats around the room, and curious eyes once stare at me again.
“I suggest you get settled in,” Matteo says, moving towards his office quickly. “I'll email you login details to the systems you need.”
Then he closes the door behind him, without so much as a glance at me.