Page 59 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
“It’s pretty obvious, once you get inside,” Hack said, his voice sounding tinny from where it came out of the speaker phone beside the laptop. “There is a pretty clear breach, where someone uploaded a Trojan to this device, and it granted them remote access. They have basically been playing around in here for weeks.”
“Can you tell what they were doing? Has the company been compromised?” If this was corporate espionage, it could bring Pennington Hotels to its knees. The legal fees to fight something like this alone would be astronomical, never mind the damage to consumer confidence if there was a data breach of personal information. Customers trusted us to guard their identities when the booked on line and gave us credit card info. If that had been compromised, we’d need to go to the press immediately.
This could be a fucking disaster.
I was saved from my negativity spiral when Hack spoke up again. “It doesn’t look like there was anything nefarious happening.” He paused, and there was the distinct sound of a deep inhalation, followed by a groan on the exhale. I looked at Silas.
“Hack,” Silas questioned. “Are you getting high right now?”
“Relax, Hedge,” Hack responded, referring to Silas by the nick name his Army buddies used. I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten it, but he didn’t use it out side his military circle. I was pretty sure that Hack and his MC buddies all used their military nicknames regularly, but I wasn’t clear on the details. “I can do this shit blindfolded. A little weed is only good for my process.”
“If we could please get back to the future of my father’s multibillion-dollar company,” I ground out, having no patience for the guys’ laid-back California attitude.
“Right,” Hack continued. “Like I was saying, it doesn’t look like they dug anywhere too deep. In fact, outside tampering with the email and social media posts, the only other thing this person accessed was… oh, shit.”
“What,” I said, my blood pressure rising with every stalled moment. The screen was still flashing, Hack’s cursor and keystrokes going faster than my eyes could even follow, swirling lines of code that made no sense to me at all. “What are we looking at?”
“I was about to tell you that the only other thing accessed was the laptops’ camera. It seemed innocuous, until I checked the email trash bin. Dudes, you’re not gonna like this at all.”
Finally, the rapid-fire motions on the laptop screen stalled as Hack brought up a single window. I recognized it as our company email server. But my heart fucking stopped when I saw what he was showing me.
Someone had been watching us, filming us. The violation I felt was instant, and my stomach revolted at the thought of some sick son of a bitch having access to private moments I shared with Penelope. If I thought I was mad before, I had never felt anger like I felt at that moment, and as I ground my molars until my jaw ached, I vowed to do what ever I had to do to find this pervert and make them pay.
“Stone,” Silas said, pulling my focus away from the photos. He better not have looked more than a glance, or we’d be having words. “Man, did you read this?”
I hadn’t even noticed the text in the email, too enraged by the photos to even consider that there was more to what I was looking at, but as I read the words now, I wanted to punch something.
“Motherfucker!” I roared, my fury a living thing inside my chest. “Can you find out who did this? I want to end them. They will rue the day they thought they could mess with my woman.”
Silas whipped his head to me, but I didn’t have it in me to address all the things that had changed recently. He hadn’t been staying at the house, our disagreement over Daphne had pushed a wedge between us, but he was here for me now, and I would make it right. But first, I had to take care of Penelope.
“The person doing the accessing is using a VPN and proxy servers all over the map. I could track it down but it would take time.”
“I don't have time. I have to fix the before these photos get released. They would ruin Penelope, and I can’t let that happen to her.” And if I ever had any hope of working things out between us, then I had to ensure that these photos never saw the light of day. She’d never forgive me if people found out; I wouldn’t expect her to.
“Well, I’ll work on it, but in the mean time, I might be able to get something more immediate. I can tell you the exact moment the virus was uploaded to this computer. If you have security footage from that day, you could see if it was someone you knew.”
“That will do, Hack. What do you have?”
Hack provided the date and time, and Silas used his own tablet to access the security footage. We both sat there in shock as we watched my half-sister Constance enter Penelope’s office on the day her and Harold came to Las Vegas.
“That bitch!” I shouted, and Hack chuckled over the phone.
“I guess you know who you’re looking at.”
“You bet your pot-smokin’ California ass we do.” I growled. “I know enough to move forward on my end, Hack, but I’d appreciate it if you could keep looking. I want this to be air tight and as legal as possible so that I can wrap this up in every way. I don’t want Constance to wiggle her way out of trouble this time. She has gone too far.” If Constance thought she could play dirty and win, she had another thing coming. Her and her moron of a husband were about to learn that you don’t mess with Texas.
“You got it, guys. Hedge, I’ll get really dirty here and find everything I can for you. Give me three days and I’ll have it all wrapped up for you in a nice red bow.”
“Thanks, Hack. Appreciate ya, brother.Hooah!”
Hack responded in kind, and then we ended the call. Silas turned to me, his face displaying nothing as he waited for me to say something.
I took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on all that had happened since Penelope and I had lunch today. I was shocked when I found out she’d left Las Vegas. Shocked and pissed. I hadn’t taken her for a runner. But this information changed everything. She didn’t run from me. She ran to protect herself, and there was no way I could blame her for that. I wished she had come to me, so that we could face this together. But Penelope was used to taking care of herself, and I hadn’t exactly given her reason to think that I would be there for her, not after the way I had spoken to her at the restaurant, giving orders and only worrying about my own interests.
Penelope didn’t need me rushing in to save her; she had already saved herself and taken care of the situation in the best way she could with the options available to her. But I sure as shit wasn’t going to sit back and watch Constance and Toddrick take something from Penelope that she had earned fair and square. Penelope had worked too damn hard to have a conniving witch like Constance and her limp-dick husband take that job from her by force.
Penelope had done what she thought was best, to protect her future when she was offered an impossible choice. Now I had to do what I thought was best, and that meant only one thing.
