Page 74 of Heist

“I would love to tie you up and fuck you again, but Eli, Hunter, and some of the others are here for an emergency board meeting and we need you to attend.”

Austin nodded. “You’re not going to make me go down there naked, are you?”

Patrick laughed. “No, baby girl. If I can’t play with you down there, you’re damn sure not going to be naked down there.”

He watched her shoulders sag. He felt much the same way, but he knew he had to put on a brave face for her. He was starting to think spending the weekend here had been a bad idea.

When they were dressed, they went downstairs where Lance, Dakota, Eli, Holly, and Matthew were waiting. Hunter was on his way up the road according to Dakota, and Garrett and Samuel would call in by phone. Russell was unavailable but would be at the party later to get caught up.

Patrick asked Holly to stay as well because she had so much experience with the media.

When they were all settled around the table, with Garrett and Samuel on video displayed on the wall, Eli called the meeting to order.

He let Lance and Patrick give the group a rundown of what happened before he spoke again.

“First of all, Austin, I’m very sorry this has happened to you. We take the privacy of our members very seriously. Are there steps you would like to see us take to make you feel better about any of this?”

Austin shook her head and Patrick worried. It wasn’t like her to be so quiet. She was a take charge kind of person.

Eli gave her a smile. “Just let us know if you think of something. I don’t know what all wecando, but we’re working on plugging this leak as quickly as possible.”

Dakota spoke up next. “How much do we need to tell the membership about this? It seems pretty fucking serious.”

Lance looked up from his computer. “I think we should keep a tight lid on this until the weekend is over. We’ll park someone at the gate and keep it closed. Only verified members will get in. I’ve already sent out an e-mail to the members stating that no guests will be let in tonight.”

It was a smart move. Verified members were subject to lawsuits if they leaked any personal information, so if the leak wasn’t electronic, it could have come from a guest who hadn’t become a member yet.

“Do we have a list of guests from the last few weeks?” Samuel asked.

“We have the list of all guests ever. We’re going to focus on those who haven’t become vetted members and we’re going back six months as a place to start,” Patrick told him.

“Four months,” Lance corrected, still typing. “I’m doing four months because that’s when Nicholas Sutton got arrested. This all seems to be connected to that as far as I’m concerned. If I don’t drag anything up from that time frame, I’ll widen my search.”

Everyone murmured their agreement.

“What about our electronic security?” Matthew asked.

Lance scowled. “I’m doing a deep dive of our system, been at it all day. So far, I’m not seeing where anyone was in the system who shouldn’t have been, but I’m not done yet. It’s a massive amount of code to dig through.”

Lance had built their system from scratch and wrote the code himself. It was supposed to be virtually impenetrable, so if someone got through it was going to be a sore spot for Lance.

“What if the information was gathered from Austin’s electronics?” Garrett asked.

Lance’s fingers paused on the keys. “I’m a fucking moron,” he blurted. “I was so angry that someone might have penetrated my firewalls that I didn’t even think about that. Yes, it’s entirely possible.”

Under the table, Patrick squeezed Austin’s hand.

“Shit,” Austin muttered. “It hadn’t crossed my mind either. What do you need to find out?”

“Do all your devices back up to the same cloud account?” Lance asked.

Austin frowned. “I… I’m afraid I don’t know. I know we have the cloud at the office, but I’m not sure how it all works.”

Lance shook his head. “People who don’t back up their electronics should be kicked in the rear-end,” he muttered. “I guess I’ll just need your devices then.”

“I’ve only got my tablet with me.”

“Go get them,” Lance said, tersely.

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