Page 95 of Pressure

"I need to get back to Chicago. This is fucking personal. Marissa needs to stay here but I don't want her alone."

Patrick murmured something to his wife then came back to the phone.

"Austin and I will stay with her."

He blew out a breath. "You sure? I really appreciate it."

By the time he ended the call he was back in the server room with Marissa who sat cross-legged on the floor typing away.

"The good news is no data is lost because we have a backup. That should also make it easier to figure out if they were trying to destroy something specific."

He dragged a hand through his hair.

"This really fucking fucked up," he cursed as he dropped to the floor beside her.

"I need to get to Chicago. Austin and Patrick are going to stay here with you. You've got keys, and everything you need here. We'll talk when I get on the ground over there."

She gave him an absent nod, but she was already lost in her work.

He pressed a kiss to her crown and walked out.

♦♦♦♦

Marissa stood and stretched her legs two hours later. Patrick had stuck his head in the door at one point and offered her food or coffee, but she'd waived him off.

Spotting the intrusion had been easier this time. Almost as if they wanted to be found and it didn't have Sebastian Forcythe's messy signature on it. So, who the fuck was it and what were they trying to do?

She'd tried to hack into the system in Chicago, but all of her access points had been closed off. Likely a safety precaution. Lance could fix it when he got on the ground.

She could waste time hacking in, but there was too much to focus on here.

Back in the Solitaire conference room, she settled in and started digging through the backup data to figure out if anything they'd been targeting.

Was it just a chaos attack or were they after something specific? She hated not knowing.

Austin popped in and sat down.

"Is there any data compromised?" she asked as she slid a black coffee Marissa's way.

She shook her head. "Doesn't appear that way. Looks like a malicious program that was designed to overheat the CPU and attempt to start a fire. I'm still piecing together which bits of information were on that specific machine."

Austin shrugged. "I don't know what any of that means. I'm mostly just trying to ascertain whether or not we need to shut down or contact membership."

Marissa paused what she was doing and glanced up at the pretty blonde. "Someone is definitely out to get you guys. But nothing was stolen or copied. This time it looks like they were simply trying to destroy something."

Austin nodded. "I just wish we could figure out what the fuck is going on."

Marissa did too. "I don't understand why both here and his Chicago office were attacked."

Austin stood. "We'll figure it out. There are some powerful personalities among us. They attract attention and make enemies even when they don't mean to. My gut says it's all tied to Nicholas Sutton's feud with Patrick and Elijah and Lance just got caught in the middle. But we won't know for sure until we put a stop to it."

Marissa gave her a tight nod. "I guess I'll keep digging then. Thanks for staying, by the way. I know you're both busy people."

Austin smiled. "It's our pleasure, Marissa. You're obviously important to Lance which makes you important to us."

She shifted uncomfortably. Family was great but mushy wasn't her thing.

Austin laughed. "It's fine. I'm not overly mushy either unless it's with Patrick. I'll leave you to your work. Just holler if you need anything. You have our numbers."

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