The Pack's Hacker (by Cooper) novel Chapter 256

256 /426

Arden

I am just getting up from my desk to go to bed when my phone rings. When I look at the caller ID, I growl. What does that little prick want now?

I put the phone to my ear. “Alpha Stellan, I’ve already cancelled the payment for the Academy. Cyra should be home soon,” I tell him.

“Soon isn’t soon enough, Arden. The note for the loan we took out to save your fucking ass was bought and the Alpha who bought it will be here tomorrow to take our pack as payment. You need to rally your troops and get them over here. I don’t have to tell you what happens if we go down.”

He’s such an arrogant little shit.

“What Alpha bought the loan?” I ask.

“Alpha Quirin. He’s supposedly very wealthy and powerful.”

I pull up the name on the pack log, then run a search on him frowning when the search doesn’t go through.

“Arden, did you hear me?” Stellan asks.

“Yeah, I heard you,” I murmur, typing in an override to do the search. Nothing.

“Where are you?” I ask distractedly, putting in a different override.

“I’m on my way to get your daughter. I’m going to force my mark on her neck and take over as I should have done already.”

“That was your decision, not mine. Good luck getting past her mate. Didn’t he already break your nose once,” I say snarkily, getting frustrated that I can’t get past whoever has blocked the search on Alpha Quirin.

“Rally your warriors and get them to Christer’s pack tonight. Alpha Quirin will be there tomorrow. If you don’t, Christer send everything he has to the Council and he won’t be the only one without a pack. We’re all in this together, Arden, so get your ass moving,” he snarls before hanging up.

I hang up distractedly, still trying to override the search for Alpha Quirin. Is this guy some sort of tech genius that he’s locked down my ability to search him?

Rather than searching for data on Alpha Quirin, I begin digging into who is blocking him. Maybe I can find him that way. I’ve just found the code, when it switches. Switches? That’s impossible!

The numbers and letters begin alternating so fast that I can’t read any of them. Who the fuck is protecting this guy?

I sit back, thinking through Stellan’s demand. If this Alpha Quirin is as powerful as he thinks and from what I can get on the pack logs, he is, then there’s a good chance that Christer won’t survive the battle. It depends on how honorable this Alpha is. But how honorable is an Alpha that buys a twenty-million-dollar loan and calls it almost immediately threatening to take over the pack?

I’ve spent nearly twenty years dealing in risks, measuring them, calculating them, betting on them. Granted, that backfired when Christer found that I’d been skimming off the company, but otherwise, I’d say I’m pretty damn good at playing the odds.

And the odds tell me that Christer won’t survive the battle tomorrow. Eliminating him and Stellan will eliminate all of my problems. Hell, maybe this Alpha Quirin would like to take Cyra as a mate. I could create an alliance bond with him and then figure out who is protecting him and why.

Fully intending to ignore Christer’s demand for my warriors, I get back to digging into who is blocking me from getting information on Alpha Quirin.

Hacker POV

The alarms had gone off the moment Alpha Arden tried to search for Alpha Quirin. I’d been chatting with Sphinx at the time, showing her how I was hacking into someone’s pack information to get something for the Council.

Sphinx: What’s happening?

Her message comes in at the same time my phone rings. Hijack.

I put the ear buds in and answer.

“Yeah, I got the alarm,” I tell him.

“Is someone going to tell me what the alarm is for?” Sphinx asks. I realize this is a conference call and Hijack called all of us.

“It looks like Alpha Arden is trying to do a search on your brother-in-law, Alpha Quirin,” Tracker says as I switch the screen I was sharing with Sphinx to the one I’m pulling up on Arden.

“Does this mean Quirin called the note?” Sphinx asks.

“Probably. He said he was going to but he was supposed to call us after it was done,” Hijack says distractedly.

“Thank goodness you thought to override the override, Hacker,” Hijack says as we watch Arden try to bypass my override.

“You put another one on top of mine, right?” I ask.

“Two, one with Sphinx’s code as well.”

“I put a forth on there and then put a scrambler on it too. You’re welcome,” Tracker says.

“Damn, I thought being newly mated would distract you, but it’s made you even more deadly,” I tease, watching Arden try to bypass our overrides.

“Being mated to a deadly man makes one more deadly,” she says seriously. Of all of us, I’m the least intense. It’s a tie between Tracker and Hijack who is more intense. Sphinx will add a nice balance to our group next year.

“Congratulations, Tracker!” Sphinx says. “Do I get to meet him?”

“The next time you’re here, Sphinx. You actually saw him in court. He was one of the men and women guarding Alpha Leo.” “The one who couldn’t stop looking at you?” Sphinx asks, making me smile. For someone so young, she’s very observant. “That’s him,” Tracker says, just as her scrambler goes into effect.

“Damn, Tracker. That’s impressive,” Hijack says.

While the others work to keep Arden away from Quirin’s information, I begin hacking into Alpha Christer’s phone. Something happened if Arden is searching for Alpha Quirin and I want to know what it is.

Once I’m in, I connect it to the video feed that we’re watching, splitting the screen and putting the audio alongside the video of Arden’s attempts to override our override.

“Now you’re just toying with him, Hijack,” Tracker says, but I can hear the smirk in her voice.

“He’ll be here tomorrow. I’ve got Stellan calling Arden. He’ll be here sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning before this fucking Alpha arrives,” Alpha Christer is saying to whomever is in the room with him.