Stacking the Deck - Charlie Cochet Page 0,29
in Florida not only catered to some of the country’s wealthiest gay men, but his clients included men who were still in the closet. Frank prided himself on his discretion, and he trusted the Kings, trusted Jack, to keep his clients’ sensitive information safe.
Sapphire Sands had one of Jack’s best security systems installed, but cyber criminals and hackers were getting smarter by the day. The digital world was a frightening place. Jack and his team couldn’t afford to merely keep up. With Leo working on a freelance basis with Jack, his team had stepped up their game, moving to a whole other level of security. Frank’s system had an upgrade patch installed a few nights ago. Jack and his team had spent days checking and rechecking, the entire week leading up to the upgrade launch. It had gone off without a hitch.
“Something’s not right,” Frank said, his huge shoulders hunched over as he sat at the state-of-the-art desktop. “It won’t let me access the client list.”
Upgrades and patches could be temperamental, but not on one of Jack’s systems. Usually he was fixing someone else’s. It couldn’t be the upgrade. He’d checked it a thousand times before launch, and after it launched, he’d checked in with Frank nearly every hour until the seventh phone call, when he’d been sweetly told to “fuck off unless something is either compromised or on fire.”
“Let me see.”
Frank pushed back from his chair and stood, his muscular frame dressed in his signature all-black suit, including black shirt and black tie. They often teased him that he looked more like a Mafia boss or hitman than an ex firefighter. Frank was solid all around, a brick wall of a guy with short black hair and honey-colored eyes. He was a man of few words who tended to grunt more than he talked, but behind that intense gaze was a very smart, no-nonsense force of nature.
Jack took the seat Frank had vacated and brought up the secure log-in screen only he, Joker, and the Kings had access to. He entered his credentials and used the small fingerprint scanning pad on Frank’s desk to scan his thumb and forefinger. The discreet camera in Frank’s monitor captured Jack’s retina. Once he was in, he launched Argus, the software he and Leo had created to monitor every security system they installed. Like the Ancient Greek god it was named after, Argus was all-seeing, scanning the network and any remote access to the network for attacks, intrusions, or unrecognized users. Once the network scan returned clear, the software scanned apps, databases, infrastructure, and the cloud. Argus came back with nothing.
“Hm. That’s weird.”
“What did you find?” Frank asked, leaning over Jack’s shoulder.
“Nothing. That’s what’s weird.”
Suddenly, a black screen opened up, the words Can you trust him? appearing in white.
“What the hell?” A photo of Fitz laughing popped up in the screen. The warmth Jack felt at seeing that beautiful face quickly turned cold when he saw the rest of the photo. They were sitting close together on the beach at night, Fitz leaning into the man.
“Is that Fitz? Wait. Why the hell is there a photo of Fitz and Joker on my computer?”
Several more photos popped up, all of Fitz and Joker huddled close together talking. A few shots of them showed the two looking far more serious.
“What the fuck is this, Jack?”
“I have no idea. Could you give me a minute?”
Frank nodded and left the office. Taking a deep breath, Jack sent Joker a text. Sacha was there in two minutes.
“What’s up?” Joker asked as he closed the door to Frank’s office behind him.
“Take a look.” Jack motioned to the monitor and rolled the chair away so Joker could stand beside him.
Joker’s eyebrows furrowed as he rounded the desk to look at the screen. “What the fuck is this?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“First of all, fuck you for talking to me like I’m trying to take your man or something. Jealous much?”
“You’re right. I’m being an asshole.”
“And for your information, we were talking about me.”
That surprised Jack more than the mysterious photos on the screen. “You were… sharing your feelings?”
“I’m going to take a moment to once again remind you of that fuck-you. Yes. I don’t know what it is about him, but your guy is easy to talk to.”
“He’s not my guy,” Jack muttered. He didn’t know what they were.
“Whatever. Gio called, and Laz put him on speaker phone.”
“Ah.” No further explanation needed. No one and nothing set Joker off