Page 41 of Pressure

11

Lance sat at the head of the table in the conference room on Sunday morning and watched as the others filed in. Marissa sat behind him with her headphones on. At first, she hadn’t wanted to attend the emergency board meeting, but he’d wanted her there and she’d finally given in.

When everyone was sitting around the table, many with cups of coffee in their hand, Lance cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming, everyone. Thanks to Marissa’s keen eye, we were able to identify some discrepancies in our application code. They are the result of a hacker and this individual has definitely been tracking the information that comes in. As far as I can tell, it’s been going on for at least eight months, but possibly longer. Because we don’t know how much damage has been done or who is at risk, I see no other option but to shut down the website and completely rebuild it from the ground up.”

“So why isn’t it already offline?” Samuel asked.

Lance gave him a pained smile. “Because I know my own ego and when we wrote the bylaws, we made this something the board had to vote on.”

“Bylaws be damned, we can retroactively vote. Get it down, Lance,” Samuel barked.

Lance nodded as he stared wide-eyed at the man. Outbursts were rare from Samuel. But he had a feeling the outburst would be the collective response from the board.

Austin spoke up. “Now, can we issue a statement to the membership?”

“I think it’s past time,” Dakota said.

“Let’s have Holly write it,” Austin said.

The group agreed and Elijah promised to ask her as soon as they adjourned.

They went through the motions of voting to pull the website and then turned to whether or not to host any more parties until their security was assured.

“I think we should issue the statement and let the membership vote.”

Matthew raised his hand.

“We’re not in grade school Matthew. What is it?”

“I’m assuming all of this communication with our membership will be electronic. How do we assure them that these communications are secure if we can’t even assure them our website is secure?”

Lance cleared his throat. “People love a scapegoat. You tell them you removed me from the board and brought in a new cyber security expert.”

“Bullshit,” Dakota said harshly.

Hunter leaned back in his chair. “It’s not a terrible idea. I’m not saying we should actually kick him off the board, but if we assure them that we have someone looking over your shoulder it could work.”

Elijah cleared his throat. “I think you’re forgetting that a lot of our members are close friends of ours. People we trust. While they may feel frustration, I don’t see any of them coming after Lance with pitchforks. I think we need to have our founder attach his name to the statement. As a board we have to show a unified front. We’re a team and we’re not replacing Lance.”

He blew out a sigh of relief. The suggestion was made in sincerity, but he was terrified of losing Solitaire.

To his surprise, everyone gave him a hug when the meeting was over. He wasn’t sure what to do with that. These people were his family, but this kind of affection wasn’t normal.

Marissa pulled her headphones out as the meeting ended and came to stand next to him.

Matthew turned to leave but Dakota stopped him.

“How long will it take to pull the site down, Lance?” she drawled.

“Technically about thirty seconds. Marissa and I will want to run some cleaners and such before we shut the server down completely but that will come later.”

“Let us be here with you while you do it. This can’t be easy for you.”

Dakota was always the one to check in and make sure her ‘fellas’ as she called the male board members, were OK, but she also called them out if she thought they were being assholes—which had happened more than once since Solitaire opened.

He gave her a kind smile. “I appreciate the support.”

Beside him, Marissa slipped her hand into his, and he gratefully squeezed it. She was the last person he would ask to support him, but he was comforted by and thankful for her gesture, nonetheless.

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