Page 32 of Fate Awakened

“Next up. Pres. Where are we with Mr. Anderson?” Dante turns the floor over to Pres, who pulls up the information on the main screen.

“We currently have in custody one Keith Anderson, age 24, a Graduate of UNLV in the College of Engineering with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. According to transcripts, he graduated in three years with a perfect GPA.” Presley visibly rolls her eyes and comments more to herself than the room, “which I’d bet isn’t that hard when you’re at a school ranked 139th in Computer Science. Not that I’d know. My school, Berkeley, is ranked first.”

I laugh despite my mood because the fact that this guy has gotten completely under her skin is amusing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her flustered by anyone, and that's saying something because she usually is the smartest person in the room.

“Anyway,” she continues with a less-than-sweet smile, “By day, Keith is an IT manager at Citi Corp, not even using his degree. He has worked there since his sophomore year, in 2018, and according to a very friendly secretary, he has been offered a job as the director of IT, but he hasn’t given them his decision yet,” she pauses, letting that information sink in before continuing.

“However, by night, Keith appears to dabble in the more salacious side of the internet. From what I was able to pull off the drives from his house, he has been involved in some serious hacking both on a national and international scale.” Presley’s face almost appears impressed at this part of the presentation, and I save that little tidbit for some teasing later.

“From what I can gather, he met Kole while attending UNLV. He helped Kole with some school assignments for money. That started their beautiful friendship into more illegal activity until he came face to face with me. I knocked him out and stole my code back in under ten minutes without breaking a sweat.”

Her face is flush with enthusiasm, and I lean back, allowing her the moment, despite it being a bald-faced lie. She stood behind me while I took out Keith. Only after he was down did she swoop in to recover her code, but I don’t know that the particulars are relevant in this case. Dante’s eyes slowly glance my way, and I shake my head quickly. While she might want her moment, he will literally kill me if he thinks for a second she was in danger.

“Yes, Pres, you’re a hero to men. Can we get to the new information, please?” Dante asks, pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes.

“Thank you, I know I am. Umm, so Jake snatched him up earlier today, mostly because he’s Brielle’s close friend, well actually…” She doesn't get the rest out before Dante clears his throat, his eyes shooting daggers at her as I’m sure he sends a mind-link message her way. Her eyes flash to me before going straight to the floor, and she clears her throat as she continues.

“Keith informed us that he was working for someone named ‘K,’ which we confirmed is Kole, and he has no idea about our world, what HUNTER’s capability is, or what Kole was involved in. Basically, he’s oblivious to everything and doesn’t know that Brielle has been kidnapped or where they could be taking her. The one piece of information we could pull from his current cell phone was that he’s meeting someone from the Marlo organization at the Strat tonight at midnight. Or… he would be if we didn’t have him.” She finishes with a smug look on her face.

My attention returns to Dante. My mind wonders briefly what she was going to say that Dante believed was worthy of keeping quiet.

“What does he know?” I ask, curious about what he has uncovered through his work with Kole and through the deep dive into me that I’m sure has already happened.

“Keith knows he was doing illegal work for K, though he has no idea who K works for or what happened with any code he wrote once it was delivered. He knows K stole HUNTER from us. That it was given to him before being subsequently reclaimed. He knows about Cain and his involvement with Brielle, including the not-so-honest tutoring situation. Keith believes we have her and are using her as leverage against him,” Dante rattles off.

“How did we find out about the meet tonight?” Elijah asks.

“Because I have his biometrics here in person, I was able to utilize his fingerprint and facial recognition to crack into both his old device and his current one. I’ve added my passwords and created a mirror device for his communications. The information for the meeting was through an encrypted communications application called Signal on his phone. Luckily, he has it set to erase every 12 hours, so we have today’s information, including tonight’s meet-up,” Pres recites, pride emanating from her.

“So are we sending someone in his place to the meet?” Erik pipes up, appearing engaged again in the meeting now that it may pertain to his skill set.

“We don't have any civilians we can trust with this content, and we can’t risk sending an Awakened wolf because they would scent him before he even sat at the table,” Jake replies first.

“We also don’t know how much they know about Mr. Keith Anderson, so it would be risky to send a duplicate. He has social media, an active Linkedin, and is easily Googleable,” Pres adds.

“What if we didn’t do either? What if we send Keith?” Attention turns to me, and Dante raises an eyebrow at my thinking.

“You want to bring Keith in on this?” Dante asks, not hiding his surprise.

“Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely don’t trust the guy, but you did say he wants to make a deal, right? Why not use that to get him to go to the meeting and get information through him? He thinks we have Brielle, right? So we make him his deal. We let him go under the guise he’s a spy for us, and he goes to the meet with eyes and ears. We may be able to use him to find out what they have on Hudson or even where they’re keeping Bri.” I finish, excitement coursing through me as I think through all the ways this should work.

“We would be knowingly putting him at risk if he’s caught,” Dante responds, not shutting down my idea, but also not with the enthusiasm I have either.

“He was risking himself working with them this whole time. Plus, this keeps our teams safe because we’re in the background.” Jake answers, giving my plan more confidence.

“I’m with Cain and Jake on this one,” Erik adds. “He put himself in the line of fire by working with these guys in the first place. We’re just exploiting this dude’s stupidity for our gain.”

Dante leans back in his seat. His fingers find their way back into his beard as he weighs the pros and cons. Our team sits silently, waiting for his response, as Pres types away on her laptop, utterly oblivious to the tension hanging on this decision.

We need this. We need to find her. This is our chance.

My wolf is steady within me, waiting for Dante’s decision.

“Okay, let's say we do this. What will the logistics look like because we’re running out of time,” Dante asks, scanning the room for answers. Pres speaks first.

“I can have an earpiece and mic ready to deploy. We won’t be able to speak to him when he’s at the table because, even with the dining room noise, they’ll be able to hear it. We will be able to talk him through his entry and exit, and we can listen during the meet.”

“We have a security team that works the Strat. They won’t seem out of place because they’re already building security. They won’t be able to be in the dining area, but they will be on site.” Erik adds.

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