Page 41 of Zen's Crash

“What’s up, Prez?” I ask. “Did the crime lab finish processing that kill bag we found on Lexi’s property?”

Siege laughs, “Of course not. The Las Salinas crime lab works at the speed of molasses. It’ll take them a week, at least.”

“Should have known that,” I mutter under my breath.

“How did Lexi take the news that we found a kill bag buried on her property?”

“She immediately freaked out and ran to ground in her safe room.”

“Good thing we’ve still got security in place there.”

“Is that why you called—to check on Lexi?”

Siege snorts a laugh. “Hell no. Worrying about your girl is on you, not me. I called to let you know that someone tried to hack our system here at the clubhouse. We need you to come and have a look.”

“Fuck. How did you even know?”

“That fucking antivirus software you insisted on installing on every computer in the building all started notifying us at the same time.”

Relief floods my mind. “I’ll head to the clubhouse right away.”

“See you in a few,” he says before disconnecting the call.

Rob offers, “Want me to continue picking through the root directories?”

“Normally, I’d say yes if it was a regular customer’s computer, but Lexi is really particular about her equipment, and I think she’d consider that a violation of her trust.”

Rob shoves up from his seat with a smile. “Well, God knows you can’t afford another misstep with that pretty lady.”

A smile ghosts across my face. “You ain’t wrong about that, my friend. I am not trying to alienate Miss Lexi. Quite the opposite, if I’m being honest.”

“Good luck with that, boss,” Rob says before heading to the front of the store to help Walter out.

***

I get on my motorcycle and head for the clubhouse with my cut blowing in the breeze. My mind begins making connections. This is the first time someone has attempted to hack our club computers. I keep a robust firewall in place there, so I’m not particularly surprised that my antivirus software stopped them in their tracks.

I can’t help but wonder if our club being targeted had anything to do with us investigating Lexi’s multitude ofproblems. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it feels connected. Within forty-five minutes, I’m walking into the clubhouse and back to my office.

I drop down into my seat and pull out my laptop. In addition to the server, I have an external hard drive that backs all the club’s information up. There’s also a copy backed up on a secure cloud. If the server or external hard drive fails, I can pull from the cloud, and if the cloud fails, I can pull information off the external hard drive. I can’t be too careful or too secure in handling our club’s confidential information.

I log onto the system and use the antivirus software to zero in on the problem. It looks like someone sent out a mass email allegedly from me, with instructions to click on a link to sign up for a rally in Arizona. The whole email looks very authentic, except the return email has an extra character that was cleverly turned from black to white so it wasn’t noticeable. Everyone in the building began clicking on the link bright and early, which triggered the antivirus software.

It takes me a minute to isolate the virus and quarantine it. Then I move it to my external hard drive to study later and restart the antivirus program. All in all, dealing with the issue is more tedious and time-consuming than difficult. While the antivirus software runs again, I analyze the clickjacking setup. Eventually, I get the hacker’s IP address, and when I run it, surprisingly it comes back local. Some asshole would have to be brave to try to hack the Savage Legion.

In fact, this has the feeling of an immature hacker trying to make a name for himself or someone intentionally being ham-handed because they wanted us to know we were being targeted. Either way, I have an IP address and am narrowingdown the geographical location of the computer that generated the hack.

Siege and Rigs come in just as I’m finishing up. Siege asks, “What did you find?”

“That email about the rally wasn’t from me—it was some hacker trying to get the brothers to click on the link. It would have given them access to individual computers and phones, depending on which device they used to open the email. Fortunately, we have a robust antivirus program in place that stopped them in their tracks.”

“Any idea who did this?” he asks.

“No, but whoever it is wasn’t even trying to fly under the radar. They used their work email.”

Siege frowns. “Are you sure? That doesn’t even begin to make sense.”

I say, “Hackers are meticulous about remaining anonymous. The fact that this person used their work email can only mean one of two things. Either the place of employment and the email address are bullshit, or this is a trap they don’t plan to let us walk away from alive.”

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