Page 36 of Her Dark Lies

“That woman?How dare you? Claire is going to be my wife. I—”

Elliot squares off against him. The two are nose to nose, hissing like feral cats.

“I am not talking about Claire. I’m talking about that bitch of a woman you married ten years ago.”

“How dare you bringherinto this,” Jack spits through clenched teeth.

“Youbrought her into it. You exposed all of us to danger. The reverberations are still lingering, even now. You were always blind to her, Jack. Blind to her faults. Blind to her actions. Even after she died, you kept the blinders on. You’ve never wanted to see what’s been right in front of you.”

Jack’s fist connects with Elliot’s nose and blood spurts. Elliot stumbles backward, both hands to his face, blood pooling through his fingers.

“You fucking asshole.” He flings the droplets to the ground, wipes his hands on his trousers, and lunges toward Jack.

Jack steps forward, too, happy to brawl this out like they used to as kids, but Brice reacts lightning fast. He grabs Jack’s arm and hauls him out of Elliot’s space.

“Stop it, both of you. Fighting isn’t going to solve anything.”

“He started it.”

“Elliot, don’t be a child,” Brice says, and Elliot rolls his eyes but sits down, a snowy white linen napkin held to his nose. It grows increasingly red, and Jack feels a terrible sense of satisfaction at bloodying his brother.

“I don’t think the data has been wiped for good,” Brice continues. “Someone’s stolen it. Moved it to their own server and wiped ours clean. They’re holding it until we respond to the threat.”

“What’s been accessed?” Elliot asks, gamely trying to gain control.

“All of it,” Brice replies.

“Does someone want to clue me in on what we’re supposed to be admitting to in the next twenty-four hours?” Jack asks wearily.

Elliot begins to speak but Brice holds up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. We say nothing. We don’t respond to blackmail. I’ve planned for this very situation. I have a self-destruct mechanism built into the personal servers. Within an hour, if a passcode isn’t entered, the files will kill themselves. The passcode is generated from a keycoder that I carry on me at all times and is controlled with my personal biometrics. It’s an automated process, the passcode resets every sixty minutes. So, it doesn’t matter. This will all be over, and the joke’s on whoever thought they could hold us hostage.”

Elliot throws the bloodied linen to the floor. His nose has stopped bleeding, but his face is puce with anger, his nose swollen and bruised.Won’t he look charming in the photos, Jack thinks.

“You never told me that. What if something happened to you? I need to have access to these files, too. I mean, God forbid, but what if one of our enemies decides to dropyouoff the cliffside? Without your active biometrics, the files are useless. Besides, whoever has them can still read the files right now.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, El,” Brice says drily, pouring himself an espresso. “I have contingency plans in place should something happen to me. But without the physical evidence, there will be no proof. And someone smart enough to crack our encryptions and break through our firewalls will know that without proof, they have nothing. This will all go away.”

“Who’s done it, though? Who managed to get into our system in the first place?” Jack asks.

“That’s what we’ll need to figure out. Karmen will get to the bottom of this.”

“Karmen is a bit overwhelmed, don’t you think?” Elliot says. “She’s already dealing with thesituationin Nashville.”

“Fuck off, Elliot. They’re tied together, obviously,” Jack says. “The break-in, the servers, finding Morgan’s body... It’s all tied together. The question is, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to sleep on it,” Brice says. “There’s nothing you can do right now anyway. The SOC and Karmen are handling things. We don’t respond to threats. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”

Jack has always been astounded by his father’s calm in a crisis. Brice claps his eldest son on the shoulder.

“It will all be okay.”

“Doubt it,” Elliot says.

“Stow it, Elliot,” Brice snaps. “Go tend to your wife. I have this under control.”

Elliot storms from the room, passing Ana and Claire as they return. Ana watches him go, then looks at Brice. “Everything okay?”

“We’re fine. Just a misunderstanding. I’ll fill you in upstairs.”