Page 39 of Matteo

His eyes snap to mine. “I hate that he went behind my back.”

We stare at one another in silence. I already know there's more going on here than simply tech issues. Matteo's issues with his father run far deeper than a disagreement over hiring me.

“We haven't lost any data,” he says.

“That may be, but what about the next time you get hit? These things won't stop. You know I'm right.”

I love the way his jaw muscle tightens. I love the way I've managed to rile him. He seems to be a little too dismissive about it all. But it feels almost like someone's playing with them.

Not doing any serious damage, but enough to get noticed. Enough to cause a stir. Like they're testing boundaries or sending a message. I step closer to one of the racks and study the monitoring screen, letting my eyes scan the data instead of simply reading it.

“The symptoms don’t fit,” I say.

Matteo narrows his eyes at me. “You’ve been here five minutes.”

I shrug. “Five minutes was enough.”

“Meaning?”

“Permissions issues, revoked credentials, altered logs. Maybe they're unrelated, but they don't feel unrelated.” I've spent years looking for patterns hidden inside noise. I've broken into systems like this before. Not that he needs to know that.

A timestamp catches my eye and I lean closer. Most people would never notice it. Most people aren’t looking for inconsistencies.

I follow the sequence of entries down the screen.

Interesting. The order feels wrong. I tilt my head, tracing the chain of events again. “This doesn't make sense.”

“What doesn’t?” Matteo shifts closer to me, causing me to lose focus for a split second, until I force myself to concentrate. I point at the monitor.

“This user action occurs here.” I tap the first entry. “But the system response appears before it.”

“And?”

“That's backwards.” I scroll through several more lines. “Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a synchronization issue between systems.” My eyes narrow. “But if it isn't, something may be altering the order of events after they're recorded.”

Matteo folds his arms. “My engineers already reviewed that.”

I would have expected nothing less. “Did they check the system logs?”

His brow creases, but he doesn't look as defensive this time. More like he's thinking.

“They focused on user activity, didn’t they?” I continue. “Access reports. Authentication logs. Permission changes.” I glance back at the screen. “But if something is happening underneath that layer, those reports won’t necessarily tell you what’s causing it. They’ll only tell you the symptoms.”

Silence stretches between us.

It's the first time since I arrived that he looks at me like I might actually know what I'm talking about. But I’m used to this. Being a woman in a male-dominated field, I've had to prove I'm smarter.

“You’ve done this before,” he says, slowly.

My muscles stiffen, just for a second. The last thing I need is for this guy to dig around in my past.

“Security audits?” I almost roll my eyes. “Sure I have. All the time.”

He inhales a breath, and stares blankly at me, as if he’s thinking about something. “If someone's inside our system, we’ll find them.”

I turn to him, chin lifted in defiance. “If they’re good, they already know we’re looking.”

The look he gives me has changed. The skepticism is still there, but it’s laced with a glimmer of admiration.