Page 19 of Dublin Charmer
I throw my hands up. “Un-fucking-believable. So I’m what, the last Quinn notch on her bedpost?”
“Don’t be bitter,” Tag says. “She’s just living her life. Besides, you’ve got bigger things to worry about. That hacker’s still out there.”
“Fine.” I slouch in my chair. “But next family meeting, can we maybe discuss who else has shagged their way through Dublin? Save me some embarrassment?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Sean grins. “Now, about Gravely...”
Nyx
The microwave dings. I grab my sad turkey dinner and shuffle back to my workstation. My Airstream is dead silent except for the hum of servers and the occasional semi-truck going by on the highway in the distance. The beauty of parking in the Airstream in an off-season storage yard is that I have no neighbors.
It also means I’m spending Christmas alone.
“Merry Christmas, Gio.” I lift my heavily spiked eggnog toward the monitor where my brother sits locked in his cell. His head is bowed over a paper plate of what looks like prison slop.
My chest aches. Last Christmas we made Papa’s lasagna recipe together, drank wine and burned the garlic bread.
I take a swig of nog, letting the bourbon burn.
The other screens show various security feeds from the Quinn and McGuire compounds and the exterior of my little home away from home. I bet the Quinns have a massive Christmas tree twinkling with lights. Watching them at their Christmas party, it was obvious they actually buy into all the wholesome holiday bullshit.
Which means, everyone should be distracted by festivities, and their network security should be running on autopilot.
I crack my knuckles and pull up my command console. “Time to try a different approach.”
My previous attempts had been too straightforward. I hadn’t expected their system to be so well-guarded. According to the intel I was given, the Quinn network security was solely run by the youngest brother, Finn. I expected to find basic level firewalls with rudimentary encryption. Instead, I got my overconfident ass handed to me.
Underestimating him was my mistake—it won’t happen again.
Knowing what I know now, I’ve got a new plan. Finn Quinn might sound like the name of a know-nothing punchline for a joke, but he’s no joke. The direct approach was too obvious, but what if I slip in through a side door instead?
I search for a bit, experimenting with some of their lower-priority systems, and decide to take a run at the one that handles climate control and lighting. It’s got low functionality and has likely been overlooked as a point of interest.
With my goal in mind, I craft a gentle probe, making it look like routine maintenance traffic.
“Come on, baby. Let me in.”
When the system doesn’t reject me or throw up any barriers, I rub my hands together and feel the rush of adrenaline that comes with me proving I’m the best at what I do. But I move cautiously. No rushing this time. I inch forward, map the network architecture, and look for weaknesses in Finn’s segmentation.
It takes a while, but eventually, I find a maintenance account with broader access than it should have. Sloppy. I conceal my interest by disguising my presence and begin exploringdeeper into their network, careful to stay within expected traffic patterns.
“Let the games begin.”
Later, I’m not sure how long I’ve had my head stuck down the rabbit hole, my fork clinks against the plastic dinner tray as I finish with my dried-out turkey and lumpy potatoes. Sadly, my eggnog is badly watered down, the ice cubes nullifying the beautiful buzz of the bourbon.
Still, I’m getting somewhere.
Movement on the fourth screen draws my attention to my brother’s cell and the asshole of a guard who insists on kicking the door every time he walks past, just to make him jump. I brush my thumb over the image of my brother. “I’ll get you out of there, Gio. I swear.”
But for now…I need to keep Billy Gravely thinking he’s got me under his thumb.
I return my focus to the Quinn network.
My phone buzzes and I scowl at the caller. “Yeah?”
“Oi, is that any way to talk to your employer on Christmas Eve?” Billy Gravely’s oily voice makes my skin crawl. “I trust you’re making progress?”
I glance at Gio’s feed. “I’m working on it as we speak. These things take time if I don’t want to get caught. You lead me to believe the Quinn network was being taken care of by one of the brothers as a task divvied among the brothers. This guy has the goods.”
