Chapter Five
“Liam? You got a minute?”
Phone pressed to his ear, Liam looked up to see Eli Williams, the new Head of Corporate Security, standing at the open door of Liam’s office. He had dark hair sprinkled with hints of gray, cropped close to his head spoke of a military background. Sharp gray eyes took in the room with practiced skill.
“Mama, I’ll have to call you back. I’ve got a meeting.” Ending the call, Liam waved him in. “What’s up?”
“I finished that diagnostic run on the network security you wanted me to, and I got some info from our…government contact,” Eli said, shutting the door behind him and taking a seat across from Liam. “No welcoming committee?”
“Antonio took him down to the dog park a few minutes ago.” Liam’s assistant was worth his weight in gold for his willingness to help with the puppy’s potty training. So far, they’d only had a few accidents on the stained concrete floors of Liam’s office. “What’d Sophia find?”
Eli’s face resembled a Texas storm. “More holes in our firewalls than we expected. Lots of backdoors that any baby hacker in their dorm room could get through. Whoever was hired to put the firewalls in place deserves to be on the receiving end of some of my SEAL training.”
“Shit.” Liam pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. “Did Agent Calhoun have any suggestions?”
Wincing, Eli stretched his long legs out. “You’re not gonna like it.”
“She wants us to brief Viv on the whole situation,” Liam guessed. His mind drifted back to the deer-in-the-headlights look on Viv’s face Monday night when he first got to her office, and that same protectiveness came roaring back. “No. She’s got enough on her plate, man. Telling her everything will send her over the edge.”
“Not everything,” Eli agreed. “We don’t need to tell her the FBI’s involved—yet—but I do think she needs to know the extent of what’s going on and whose fault it is.”
Liam’s head cocked to one side as he tossed a Death Star stress ball from hand to hand. “Fault? Did the FBI find the source of the hacks?”
“No. Whoever’s been using the holes knows enough to hide their tracks pretty well.” Eli waved some papers in his hand. “I’m talking about who hired the rube who put together the current network security systems. It’s totally FUBAR.”
“The job went to the cheapest option possible, right?” Liam shook his head. “Fucking Barton.”
Eli hesitated. “I mean, the man didn’t seem like he was sad at the funeral of a man who’d been his brother-in-law and his colleague for over thirty years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was intentional or that it was even him. He could just not realize how important network security is. Or one of his lackeys was in charge of making the decision and Barton just signed off on it.”
“This is just the tip of the iceberg.” Liam briefly filled Eli in on the CFO’s visit to Haven. “He’s giving the full-court press for the CEO job, but Sophia says they don’t have enough evidence to justify investigating him.”
“Then we’ll have to keep an eye on him ourselves,” Eli said. “The FBI won’t be much help until we get more to go on. So far, lax security has made it easy for someone to get in and out of the system. I get wanting to keep Ms. Monroe out of the FBI part of this for now, but we need to give her a head’s-up on just how much work is going into the cybersecurity. This level of a project is going to need her approval.”
“Let’s see if she’s free.”
When they got to the CEO’s suite, Vivien’s assistant, Josh, disappeared into her office for only a few moments before he returned to where Liam and Eli waited. Anticipation built in Liam’s gut. He’d seen Vivien at the press conference on Tuesday, but they hadn’t had time to talk since he helped coach her. She haunted his dreams, though. He’d woken up sweaty and hard from visions of what he wanted to do to her on the couch, on the desk, on the floor. No. He needed to focus and not get distracted.
Vivien was sitting on that very couch when they entered the office, wearing another one of those tight skirts that made his mouth water, but she’d tossed her jacket over the back of her desk chair and wore a light-blue blouse that played off her green eyes. He wondered, not for the first time, why she didn’t go along with the company’s loose dress code.
“Thank you for seeing us, Ms. Monroe,” Eli said politely. “I hope we weren’t interrupting anything.”
“Please, call me Vivien. And you weren’t interrupting anything. It’s good to see you again, Eli. I was surprised my father managed to woo you away from your other job.”
“Jed was pretty hard to say no to. Plus, it was time for a change. Thanks for putting a good word in for me. Most people wouldn’t with my injury on record.”
For a second, Liam had forgotten that Jed had hired Eli on Vivien’s recommendation. Jed had started to email back and forth with his oldest daughter more and more over the last year. Liam thought it was just one of those parts of old age where he was wanting to make amends, but now he wondered if there wasn’t more to it.
“You did your job and you did it well. Between your time as a SEAL and your experience in cybersecurity, you were a likely choice to fill this position. And the physical requirements here aren’t anywhere near what they must have been in your last positions. Injury or no, you’re the best man for the job, or so Liam tells me.”
She motioned for both men to sit down, continuing to flip through a stack of papers.
Eli took one of the boxy armchairs, but Liam chose to sit on the couch with her. Yeah, he had a masochistic streak, apparently. Then again, she didn’t try to put more space between them, either. In fact, he thought she might have relaxed a little with him beside her.
“Josh suggested you take a look at this before we started,” she said, handing him the papers. “He marked a page, but I’m not sure what it is exactly.”
Liam looked at the cover. “It’s a weekly blog that lists new games that have come out, along with a brief description.”
“What brings you two here?” Vivien asked, her attention on Eli. “I think you’re the only department head left that I haven’t had a chance to meet with.”
“I finished my final assessment of the company’s network security. Liam and I had already drafted up some preliminary plans, but it’s going to require more work than we originally thought.”
“Well, I hope it’s as good as the campus security plan you sent me on my second day. That seems to be well under way now.” Vivien took the folder Eli held out to her. “Any problems with the existing security personnel?”
“No, ma’am. A few grumbles from the other guys, but for the most part they all think it was high time the upgrade happened.” Eli scratched his forehead as he sat back in the chair, his posture still military straight. “Seems that some of them suggested similar upgrades to my predecessor, but McNeil wouldn’t hear of it. Said everything was just fine the way it was and that he wanted to save money for the company.”
Save the company money had to be code for “was ordered by the CFO not to pursue it.”
Liam continued to read the documents in front of him, the knot in his stomach tightening. It was like seeing his babies tattooed with devil horns or something. This was worse than he’d thought, and these security upgrades might be too late to do much good.
“Shit.”
…
“What?” Vivien looked between the grim-faced men, trying not to linger on Liam for too long. She’d spent more time than she was comfortable with thinking about Mr. Geek Chic since he showed up and rescued her from a minor breakdown a few nights ago. Her independent streak protested at accepting the help, but she’d been in way over her head, and she was getting the sneaking suspicion she was about to be there again.
Liam ran a hand through his hair, mussing it even more. “The copycats are officially ahead of us on one of our new web-based games by almost two weeks.”
“Hell.” Eli hit the arm of his chair with a fist. “This is what I was afraid of. We need these upgrades started yesterday.”
When she’d learned Eli was hired on as the head of corporate security at MT, she’d been relieved. He’d worked for a private security firm her company often hired when their associates went into countries that weren’t always friendly toward Americans. In the two weeks he’d shadowed then, she’d been impressed with his focus and his ability to speak to matters aside from physical security on the trip. He understood the cultures and the nuances of how to get around in the Middle Eastern countries they visited. He’d managed to convince the most bullheaded of the firm’s lawyers on the trip that she needed to cover her head despite her feminist misgivings, a feat the rest of his team couldn’t accomplish. During one of the longer car rides, Vivien learned he was also well versed in cybersecurity thanks to his work in the Navy, which is what led her to recommend him to Jed.
Now it seemed she’d need that expertise more than ever.
“You would think my father would already have these upgrades done, as much as he loved to be on the cutting edge of technology.”
Liam and Eli exchanged a look she couldn’t decipher. Why did she always get the feeling Liam was holding something back from her?
“Your dad didn’t keep up with the growing culture of hackers and security. That part of his brain was stuck in the eighties,” Liam said, his brows furrowing at whatever he was reading.
“Why did Jed suddenly take an interest in updating security? He emailed me a few months ago asking for recommendations for corporate security specialists, which is when I told him about Eli.”
Liam moved so he could face her across the couch, hesitating before he responded. “We were both concerned about the copycat games, but it was more than that. Updating our firewalls and encryptions most likely would have taken care of those, or at least let us know whether or not it was an inside job, but I think this goes deeper than just the games.”
“How fast can you get this plan in place?” Vivien asked, leaning against the arm of the couch to keep a respectable distance between her and Liam. She’d come close to kissing him the other night, but that would be a terrible idea. She was his boss, and she needed to ignore the urge to feel his strong fingers rubbing her tense muscles, damn it.
“If we start tomorrow? At least a month, maybe more.” Eli studied the documents he’d brought with him. “We could have the departments with the most proprietary information taken care of within two weeks, if we pushed. I’d definitely want to start with Game Development and go from there.”
Liam shoved his thick-framed glasses up by the bridge, a gesture Vivien found oddly sexy.
“I think we should start as soon as we can, especially in light of the latest copycat game. Every time they get away with this, we’re losing money, and we’re losing fans. If the project is under way, whoever the board chooses to take over for you can’t put a stop to it.”
“Why would someone stop it? These are commonsense protections that every tech company should have,” Vivien said, pushing aside a lock of hair that had escaped her French twist. Her phone buzzed against the leather of the couch, and with narrowed eyes, she clicked around, stilling the incessant movement. Stupid clients. “We need them now more than ever, especially considering the copycats are now officially releasing our games before we can.”
Again, the men exchanged a look, but didn’t elaborate. She wanted to push them, to find out what she was missing, but she hesitated. She wasn’t staying. Why did it matter if someone would do something stupid like stopping the security upgrades? She shouldn’t care about this.
“By the time this gets rolling, it will cost too much to turn back,” Eli assured Vivien. “Even now we’ve got enough of the parts for the campus security ordered that it couldn’t be stopped without wasting tens of thousands of dollars.”
“Good.” Vivien crossed her legs. “Now, what about—”
Before Vivien could continue, there was a knock on the office door before it opened and her uncle stepped in, her assistant, Josh, shooting her an apologetic look over his shoulder. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything private. I realized I hadn’t seen my niece at all in the last few days, and I wanted to make sure you’re settling in, Vivien. You seemed a little overwhelmed last time we spoke.”
She narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t overwhelmed the last time they talked. She’d been pissed at him for invading her father’s private space and confused by what the hell he thought he was doing. But she couldn’t let him think for a second that he’d set her on her heels with his bullying tactics.
“How considerate of you, Uncle Richard. As you can see, I’m settling in just fine. Liam, Eli, and I were in the middle of a meeting.”
“Really? I called earlier and your assistant told me you had nothing on the schedule.” Barton moved through the office coming to stand opposite Vivien. “What are you meeting about? You seem to be awfully busy for someone who will be leaving us soon.”
Vivien didn’t bat an eyelash at the little dig. “Did you expect me to sit back while my family’s company floundered without a leader? My last name might be Monroe, but I’m sure by now you know that I inherited the Barton head for business. Whoever I recommend as my successor, I want to leave the company in a better place than when it came into my care.”
Which was true. Mostly. But she also wanted to get back to New York as soon as possible. As much as she missed doing the work she knew, the work she excelled at, she also missed being in her own space, seeing her friends, meeting them for dinner when she got time.
“Why worry about starting something you won’t be here to follow through on?” Richard pushed, his gaze darting suspiciously between Eli and Liam. For the first time, Vivien took solace from the fact that Liam Hale sat beside her. Her uncle was up to something.
“She’s not starting anything new.” Liam kept his voice pleasant, but Vivien caught the expression in his blue eyes—he wasn’t about to let Uncle Richard in on their project. “We were discussing some initiatives that Jed laid the groundwork on before he died. The show must go on, as they say, which means we have to keep working.”
Barton frowned. “A project that involves both the head of security and the Vice President of Game Development? Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but I wasn’t aware of any collaboration in the works between those departments. Any major internal project is usually run by the board before it’s implemented.”
“Mr. Monroe felt that this was a project that needed autonomy from the board,” Eli said, keeping his poker face on.
“And what sort of project would that be?” The old man pushed on. “Perhaps it might be better if I took point on this. You’ve got more than your fair share to do already, dear.”
“It’s no trouble, Uncle Richard. Liam and Eli have everything under control. Just some routine upgrades. Jed finally decided to bring things into the twenty-first century,” Vivien said, standing up and gently clasping her uncle’s arm and guiding him to the door. “You’ll receive a memo once we’ve finalized everything. I’m sure you have lots of work to get back to, and we’re just finishing up in here.”
As soon as the door shut behind her uncle, Vivien turned around, rolling her eyes. “My God. Is he always such a pompous ass?”
Liam and Eli paused for a moment before responding as one. “Yes.”
“Well, he’ll have to get used to not knowing everything,” Vivien said, “at least while I’m in charge.”
In that moment, she thought she saw a hint of approval and maybe even pride in Liam Hale’s eyes. Why did that make her happier than anything else since she’d gotten here?