Page 104 of Evie's Story
Thorn kept his amused smile in place as Evie gloated about tricking Alex into admitting he used the security cameras in the tower to spy on her, but inside, he was seething with rage and a hint of apprehension.
The fact that he had been spying on Evie using the cameras in the Tower was bad enough. It would have ended his career with Sloane Security Services and gotten him blacklisted from ever working security again. However, from the sounds of things, he’d try to gain access to the cameras on the Sloane Consulting floors as well and given the nature of what they did up there, if he’d actually managed to, it could have been catastrophic.
The other potential problem, the major one that made Thorn’s stomach curl with fear, was that Sloane Security Services provided security systems and monitoring services to a number of businesses across New York City, and some of those were businesses Evie frequently visited. If Alex was tracking her phone, he would know when she was in those businesses and could bring up the feeds, which would be a significant violation of the contracts and open them to potential lawsuits.
For a brief moment, Thorn fantasized about going down to Evie’s apartment and employing one or two of the many ways he knew to make someone disappear, but Evie’s voice broke through his thoughts.
“So, I gave him his thirty-day notice and came up here.” She smiled proudly. “And he’s gonna be lucky if Tommy doesn’t fire him immediately when he finds out he was using the cameras to spy on me.”
“Yes, he will be lucky,” Thorn murmured, knowing Alex would be fired and removed from the building within an hour of telling Tommy what he had done. He tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling at her. “I am happy that you are so happy, it’s good to see.” He turned on the movie and settled in to watch it, trying to ignore the way his stomach was flipping with nerves.
Forty-five minutes later, he eased Evie off him and gently lay her down on the couch, tucking a cushion under her head and covering her with the blanket. He figured she was too drunk to wake up while he went to talk to Tommy, but he restarted the movie just in case and went down to the penthouse.
Knocking lightly on the bedroom door, he only had to wait a minute before Tommy stepped out, tying up his robe.
“We have a major problem.”
Chapter Fifty-Five: The Breach
Tommy listened as Thorn repeated what Evie had told him, his face going white. This was bad. It could be terrible, but right now, he was holding onto the hope that it was just bad. Taking a deep breath, he made a mental checklist of what he had to do.
The first step was revoking Alex’s access to everything, so he sent Thorn down to the Security Services Admin floor to do that and to get in touch with Vanessa and Harvey to inform them of the breach. Tommy knew Vanessa was home with pneumonia, but he also knew she wouldn’t appreciate being left out of the loop.
Next, he needed to find out where Alex was. He couldn’t remove him from the apartment until the thirty-day notice ran out, since he’d signed a lease with Evie and she was the legal owner, but he could restrict his movements in the rest of the Tower.
Tommy hoped that having to be escorted in and out of the building, like a criminal, by security guards he used to supervise would humiliate Alex enough to leave quickly. But just in case it didn’t, he also had a backup plan.
Since he’d been watching Evie on the security cameras, Tommy was hoping she could get a temporary restraining order for stalking, so the NYPD would remove him. He just wasn’t sure how that would work if Alex had been accessing client camera feeds to spy on her. Some clients might see it as Tommy doing everything he could to have the perpetrator prosecuted, which would help him, but others wouldn’t like the publicity. Hell, Tommy wasn’t sure he wanted it aired in public either. Still, there was something to be said for transparency.
“HELIX,” he called as he walked back into the bedroom to get dressed. “Where’s Alex?”
“Mr. Turner is passed out on Evie’s living room floor,” she informed him, a slight hint of disdain in her voice. “He went out for a few hours and stumbled back in about twenty minutes ago.”
“He is still alive, right?” Tommy grumbled as he pulled on a sweater and slacks, waking up Nissa, who sat up in bed, pushing her hair off her face.
“I believe so,” the AI replied. “He occasionally lets out a grunting sound.”
“Keep an eye on him, and if he stops grunting, let me know,” Tommy told her. He crossed the room to Nissa, sitting beside her and brushing his fingers over her cheek. “Eviebroke up with Alex earlier this evening. Apparently, he thought she was cheating on him with Aaron and started spying on her through the security cameras.” He explained the situation quickly. “She’s passed out in Thorn’s apartment if you want to go up and sit with her, but she should be fine sleeping it off there.”
“She got drunk? Is she okay?” Nissa raised an eyebrow and tossed the blankets off, ready to go up to her, making Tommy chuckle softly.
“It was a happy drunk, and you know how much she loves Serbian brandy and wine.”
Nissa blew out a relieved sigh. “She does become a lush when she gets into the Serbian alcohol.” She studied Tommy. “Can I do anything to help?”
“Thorn is revoking Alex’s access as we speak and will notify Vanessa and Harvey. Evie and Aaron are now considered compromised, so they’ll have to be debriefed by Harvey, who’ll decide whether they need a protective detail until Alex is gone.” The corners of his mouth tightened. “We’re going to have to suspend her and Aaron with pay until we do a complete audit of their computers.”
Seeing Nissa’s dismayed expression, he nodded. “I know. I know he was stalking her, but he thought she was cheating with Aaron. Until I can make sure Alex never got into anything, we can’t put Aaron in the field; his information might be compromised. But since we’re already down a contractor, I’ll do his audit first.”
**********
Tommy spent the rest of the night working out what Alex had accessed. He started with Evie’s phone but didn’t find anything on it, which wasn’t surprising; Evie was notoriously careful about granting access to her phone, even changing herPIN every two or three months. He found evidence that Alex had attempted to gain access to the Consulting floor’s security cameras over a dozen times and had been tracking Evie’s car. He sent Thorn down to find the tracker, and he returned twenty minutes later, laying it on the desk.
“It is an OBD-II tracking module.” He explained as Tommy picked up the small device and looked it over. “I use them a lot, so it was the first thing I looked for. You plug it into the OBD-II port, it logs the GPS data and transmits it over the cellular network.”
“Christ.” Tommy shook his head, turning back to the screen. “I’m not sure why he thought she was cheating.” He nodded at Evie’s phone. “I looked through her and Alex’s texts. Every time she went for lunch with Aaron, she told him the details. Where and when and asked if he wanted to join them.”
“She was helping him stalk her without realizing it.” Thorn leaned over Tommy’s shoulder, resting his hand on the desk as he studied the screen. “Did he access any of the clients' systems?”