Breaching His Defenses - Allyson Lindt (best short novels .TXT) 📗

Jared stared at the laptop in front of him, and tried to blink some moisture back into his eyes. Vivian’s phone sat in the middle of the table, speaker on and cable running back to her machine to keep it charged. The clack of keys filled the room. Occasionally Dewson would report something, or one of them would snap out a question or command, but for the most part, they kept their heads down.

When he’d gotten Mikki’s first text several hours ago, the rest of his doubt had been obliterated. The message headers matched. The email—the one pretending to be him—had come from her phone.

He didn’t want to believe it. It devoured every thread of his consciousness not already dedicated to fixing the problem at hand. He’d really fallen for it again. Not in a million years would he have ever guessed…

Then again, that seemed to be his curse. It really was true—what his parents had between each other, the love he’d grown up around—that was the shit of fairy tales.

He hadn’t been able to tell his friends the newest information. Vivian at least thought highly of her. They could deal with that after. The only thing he didn’t understand was the shitty job she’d done covering her tracks. Six months ago, he hadn’t seen a trace anyone had been on his network. This had her name stamped on it. Literally. Was she mocking him? He didn’t want to believe it, but he also couldn’t ignore the possibility.

He raked his fingers through his hair. He needed to focus on work. Where was the hole that had allowed the Trojan onto their network? What was he missing? Maybe Rosen had been right; he’d been out of the tech for too long. At least the network was clean, as far as they could tell. That was killing him, too. Not only could they not find the holes in their network, they didn’t even know if they’d completely removed the immediate threat.

“Next steps?” The exhaustion in Tate’s voice reflected the weary atmosphere of the entire room. It was barely eleven, but they’d been at this for hours, only breaking long enough to down another can of Red Bull or cup of coffee. For about thirty seconds, he’d considered using the former to make the latter. Fortunately, he wasn’t that exhausted. Yet.

Would Mikki do something like make coffee with Red Bull? He hated himself the moment the thought passed through his head. He’d managed to keep from thinking her name all night, and now there it was, flooding back in and taunting him. Maybe that was what he needed to do. Think like her.

Sexy, alluring, deceptive… He pushed the string of words aside. Later. Wallow later. Impulsive, fickle, and fleeting. There was the mindset he needed. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply—one…two…three times, trying to push away all the indoctrination he’d picked up over the years. If he was just some person, someone who had the skill and intelligence, but not the corporate experience, where would he poke around for holes?

Her words echoed in his head. Remote computers. Machines you wouldn’t ever expect to have access to your deepest, most important information. He focused on the room again, gaze pausing on Tate. “Check the virtual machines quality assurance uses. You’re looking at database users. Accounts with no passwords, admin access, shit like that.” He turned to Vivian. “Same thing, focus group VM’s. Dewson.”

The drowsy “Yeah?” echoed off the glass coffee table.

“Every fucking administrative assistant we have. Ours, reception, all of them.”

That was it. It had to be. Hope surged inside as he dove into his own work, searching and scanning the same things he’d ordered everyone else to do.

Except an hour later, no one had anything. It was all tight and secure. He flopped his head back against the couch, letting a frustrated grunt escape. “Fuck.”

A knock echoed through the room. Jared shot a questioning glance at Tate.

His friend shrugged and nodded at the tray on the table. “Room service was already here, and even if it wasn’t the middle of the night, I told the front desk to give us some quiet—including housekeeping.”

Vivian sighed and stood. “Staring at each other isn’t going to answer the ‘who’ question, and we’re obviously at a standstill, so an interruption won’t hurt.” She pressed her eye to the peephole and muttered, “Well then. Didn’t expect that.”

Jared’s gut sank, rage twisting with betrayal. He didn’t have to ask who it was.

“We’re kind of busy for a booty call.” Tate’s comment barely reached Jared’s ears through the scream of his thoughts.

What the hell was she doing there? Rubbing it in? The latch clicked, and the hinges squeaked. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help it. There was Mikki, standing in the doorway. Even across the room he could see the circles under eyes. Her shoulders were hunched. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, gaze darting everywhere. Every time she reached him, she skipped past, never making eye contact. “I want to help.”

Vivian opened the door wider.

Jared’s protest stuck in his throat. He should be ordering her to leave. Ignoring everything she said. But that tiny little voice in the back of his head refused to accept all the facts at face value. Mikki stepped into the room, and the door swung shut behind her.

Vivian nodded at Jared before she turned away. “It’s his show, it’s not my call.”

Apparently it was her call, at least on some level. He fixed his most damning glare on Vivian, who shrugged it off and settled back onto the couch across from him. Maybe he should have told them there was evidence to back up their suspicions of where this had come from.

A heavy silence descended on the room, filling Jared’s lungs until he thought it might suffocate him. He forced himself to breathe but still couldn’t look at her. “How did you find the room?”

“It’s um…luck?”

“We have work to do.” Jared couldn’t keep his exhaustion from his voice. “You hacked another computer so you could come tell us you’re sorry for hacking ours?”

He finally forced himself to look at Mikki. Even being as furious with her as