Page 66 of High Reward

“Or it’s completely separate. Could be she had a stash we missed. What if the pressure got to her, and she wanted to check out?”

Owen shakes his head. “I searched that room myself. Multiple times. There were no drugs.”

“Then someone got them to her,” Luke says. “Which means our security has a hole.”

The implications settle over us. If someone can get drugs to Harper while she’s supposedly secure in our club, what else can they get past our defenses? What other vulnerabilities are we missing?

Matteo moves to stand over Luke’s shoulder, studying his handwriting. “We need to separate these threats. Handle them individually instead of assuming they’re connected.”

“Agreed,” I say. “Phineas is contained for now. We interrogate him, get what information we can, then decide his fate.”

“And Grace’s stalker?” Owen asks.

I think about the TikTok videos I found, Kara Lindon’s face in the profile picture. The timeline of her appearances in Las Vegas. The way the bomb threat landed as personal. “We start with Kara Lindon.” I pull out my phone, showing them the screenshot of her profile. “She’s been in Vegas. Frequently. For months. Owen’s already on that trail. I pulled up her socials because I was going to see if Harper recognized her.”

Owen takes my phone and types Kara’s username from the screenshot. Kara’s profile appears on his main monitor, larger and clearer. “I’ve mainly focused on financials and the PI she hired. I’ll do a full workup of her movements around the city using her social media tags. Doesn’t read like she’s trying to hide from anyone.”

“Do it fast,” I say. “And quietly. I don’t want Grace to know we suspect Kara until we’re certain.”

Matteo frowns. “We’re about as certain as we can be. You’re still going to keep this from her?”

“I’m protecting her,” I snap, then force my voice back to level. “Grace has enough to worry about without adding her ex-boyfriend’s psychotic widow to the list.”

“She has a right to know,” Luke says quietly.

“She has a right to be safe.” I stand, pacing the length of the room. “If we’re wrong about Kara, we’ve caused Graceunnecessary pain. If we’re right, knowing too early could put her in more danger.”

Owen’s fingers resume their dancing across the keyboard. “I’ll know more in a few hours. I’m going to see if I can trace the malware back to her as well. Her family is in tech, so it’s possible she got help from someone.”

“Good.” I check my watch. Nearly midnight. Grace will be wondering where I am, worried about Harper, about Lili, about all of us. “I’m going back to the girls. Keep me updated on everything.”

I leave them to their investigation and head back toward the main dungeon, toward Grace and Lili. The timeline is clearer now, the threats more defined. But the solutions seem further away than ever.

Owen’s voice stops me at the door. “Victor. Check this out.”

I turn back, watching him pull up split screens showing lines of code. The malware signatures side by side, one from Grace’s phone, one from Sabrina’s. Even to my untrained eye, the similarities are obvious.

“Same code family,” Owen says, highlighting sections that match across both screens. “Not just similar behaviors. Identical structure, just re-targeted for different devices.”

Luke leans forward in his chair. “Meaning?”

“Meaning whoever hit Grace’s phone also hit Sabrina’s. Same author, same methods, different goals.” Owen’s fingers fly across the keyboard, bringing up additional analysis windows. “I compared the phishing emails that delivered the payloads.”

Two email screenshots appear on his monitors. Both designed to seem like routine notifications, one from the university to Grace, one from Sabrina’s bank. But the underlying code structure says they’re connected.

“Professional work,” Owen continues. “Not some kid throwing together malware from online tutorials or ChatGPT. This iscomplex code, targeted specifically for their devices and usage patterns. Tyson’s contact will hopefully be able to ID the hacker for us.”

Matteo moves closer to the screens. “How long would it take to build something like this?”

“Weeks. Months if you’re being careful about it.” Owen pulls up metadata from the files. “And expensive. This isn’t amateur hour. My guess is Kara or whoever is behind it paid the hacker to deploy it, and he or she used something already in their arsenal.”

I study the code, thinking about the timeline we just mapped out. “So, Grace’s stalker has resources.”

Owen nods, switching to a new screen showing network traffic analysis. “The interesting thing is the deployment pattern. Grace’s malware has been dormant for three months. Just collecting data, learning her patterns.”

“And Sabrina’s?”

“Activated immediately. Designed for a single-use attack. The bomb threat. It means whoever she’s working with, wasn’t a one time transaction. That could be useful in my search.”