Lauren (Silicon Valley Billionaires 1)

“Gabe! What are you doing?”

“I’m looking. You saw it—he stopped here for a second.”

I was losing patience. “So?”

He crawled underneath the desk and started examining the hardware. “So he’s a slimy bastard. That’s why I’m looking.” Gabe cursed and pulled something off the hard drive of the computer. He held up a tiny, square chip. “I don’t know what this is. Do you?”

My heart started pounding as I looked at it. “Part of a computer?”

He handed it to me. “It was attached to part of a computer.”

I turned the miniscule piece over in my hands. I resisted the urge to crush the chip into dust, knowing I needed to analyze it. “You might just get your wish, after all.”

“What’s that?”

“To bash

Clive Warren’s skull in. I might even hold him for you.”

Chapter 5

Clive Warren tried to hack me. He’d put this device in my headquarters to bypass my firewall and navigate inside my system. Based on the quick research I’d done on this chip, he’d probably already succeeded.

I cracked my knuckles and waited for the database report to finish compiling. I turned to Gabe. “You should go.”

He’d spoken with a programmer friend about the chip, and they were texting each other furiously. He looked up at me, still seemingly distracted by what he’d been reading. His eyes cleared after a moment, but his brow was still furrowed. “I’m not leaving you. This doesn’t look good. My guy says that this is probably a capacitator chip.”

I rubbed my eyes. “That’s what I was just reading about. They ran a study on them at the University of Michigan recently. It’s a piece of hardware that can hack into an operating system, right?”

He nodded. “It’s more like a cell than a piece of hardware, but you’re on the right track. It’s unique in that it has to be physically present on computer hardware in order to work. It takes a while for it to become fully functioning, but once it’s up and running, it can hack into the entire system. But that’s also why it’s preferable to a regular old software hack—these cells are impossible to find.”

“Unless you’re caught on a security tape sticking it to the back of a computer.” Clive might be dumber than I’d thought.

“He did that on purpose, you know. He wanted you to see him.”

I knew Gabe was right, but I still didn’t understand Clive’s motivation. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think you’re going to want to call the authorities. You shouldn’t even let him get away with this for a day.”

I shook my head. “I can’t have outsiders in here right now—not even the FBI or the police. We’re finally getting somewhere with our clinical trials. If information about the patch leaks out now, it’s going to compromise everything. We don’t even know if he got any information… It’s not worth the risk.”

“I don’t think you’re being reasonable.”

His voice was even, not preachy, but I still arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t remember asking what you thought.”

Gabe put his phone down and started pacing. “I have an opinion, whether you want to hear it or not. I don’t want you to be at risk. If you won’t go to the police, we’re going to have to take care of Clive privately.”

“Gabe. There is no ‘we’—this is my problem.”

He stopped and turned to me, and I could see how tired he was, lines creasing his handsome face. “I’m not surprised you’re saying that, but at least listen to me. There’s a ‘we’ to the extent that I’ve asked you to partner with my company. I have an interest in Paragon, whether you like it or not. And I have a background in security. I have connections.”

“You do?” I barely knew Gabe—I’d do well to remember that.

He nodded. “My brother runs a security company. My dad did too. I can help you take care of Clive.”

I swallowed hard. “I appreciate that, but I have to deal with him on my own. I also appreciate that you’re here with me, and how supportive you’ve been tonight, but it’s a one-off. You’re going to go back to Dynamica tomorrow, and I’ll be here. And that’s okay. That’s the way it should be.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “My programmer friend thinks he could have already gotten into your system. Your technology’s at risk. You’ve most likely been compromised.”