Page 16 of Wolf Crowned

I leaned forward, poking my head between them so I could squint at the screen. “What is it? I want to see.”

Brandon cleared his throat. He slid the keyboard in front of him and his fingers danced across the keys. The window he pulled up might as well have been written in a foreign language.

I let out a nervous laugh. “What exactly am I looking at, Brandon?”

He glanced at Lincoln and then looked over his shoulder at me.

I inclined my head, hoping it would encourage him to talk.

He scratched the top of his head. “I’ve been working on something.”

I grinned. “I want to hear about it.”

He shifted in his seat. ”So I’m taking some online courses on white hat hacking and computer programming.” He sucked in a breath and blew it out before ducking his head down. “I’ve built a piece of malware that if we send to Alpha Dean, we might be able to pick up everything on his network. If he clicks the link that is.”

That sounded impressive. “Wow. I’ve heard about things like that before, but I didn’t know you could do that.”

He shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal. “Lincoln and I were talking about sending him an email. We could embedded the malware in a file and then hopefully he would click on it. It would download something in the background to run on his computer as long as it goes unnoticed, we have access to everything.”

I laughed out loud and hugged him from behind. “Brandon, that’s amazing. This could be a game changer for us.”

If it were possible, his cheeks got redder.

He gulped. “I think it’s pretty much ready to send. Lincoln and I were looking it over a little bit ago. We wanted to run it by you before we did anything.”

I rocked him back and forth as I hugged him harder. “Of course I’m okay with it. It’s brilliant, Brandon. You’re a genius.”

Brandon nodded, and his shoulders relaxed. “The only thing we need to do is compose an email. I’m not the best at doing that and Lincoln thought it would be best if we made it authentic so he’d be more likely to click.”

I gave him one last squeeze before standing up. “You mean like it come from me?”

Lincoln ran a hand over his mouth as he leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, maybe you could offer to meet up. Discuss a peaceful resolution. We could imbed the code in the pdf for the restaurant. We can redirect it so that it goes to the actual site once the download is complete.”

I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and crossed my arms over my chest. “I can type it up and then you and Lincoln just do your thing.” I narrowed my eyes and let out a heavy breath. “Do you really think that he’ll believe we want peace?”

Lincoln tilted his head to the side. “Maybe. It’s worth a shot. He underestimates you. I think we use that to our advantage.”

I moved around him and took a spot so I was sitting across from both him and Lincoln. “You know that gives me another idea.”

Brandon and Lincoln looked at me expectantly their eyebrows raised.

I slid my hands up and down the table as I thought. “Could we also access his contacts this way? Maybe we could reach out to some of the alphas and maybe sway them to our side.”

Brandon sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Sloane, we will have access to everything.”

Lincoln rubbed at his jaw. “Yeah, it’s just a matter of whether any of his contacts would be willing to work with us or not. Some are terrified of my father and follow out of blind fear.”

I scratched at the wood grain on the table. “If we can get the list of contacts, maybe you can help me vet them to see who might be worth reaching out to.”

Lincoln let his hands fall back into his lap. His eyes wandered up to the ceiling like he was thinking. “Yeah, I think I know enough to help steer you at least in the right direction for most of them.”

Yet another roadblock we were derailing. “Perfect.” I wiggled my fingers and reached for the keyboard.

Brandon slid it over to me.

Another thought occurred to me as I stared at the screen. “Lincoln, you told me your dad fudges his numbers for the brewery. Couldn’t we expose that to the authorities?”

Lincoln ran a hand through his hair. “That was always the intention. We just never worked out how to do it without involving humans in pack business.”

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