“DID YOU FIGURE out why the security breaches keep happening? And how?”
Massimo Brunetti looked up from the three monitors on his desk in the lab that was the hub of his cyber security business. It was a high-security center with thumbprint access only.
A measure he’d taken at the age of sixteen when his father, Silvio, had still been living with them, a matter of self-preservation for Massimo to keep him out. Now, this was his tech center where his servers were stored and where he designed software worth billions.
Only his older half brother, Leonardo, who was currently scrutinizing everything, and their grandmother Greta’s stepdaughter, Alessandra, had access. On the condition that they disturb him only at the threat of the building burning down or an equivalent emergency.
Greta wasn’t allowed. Her emergency the last time had been an epic tantrum on his thirtieth birthday three months ago. The cause was that Leo and he were going to die childless, leaving the dynastic legacy of the Brunettis to perish with them.
She should know Massimo didn’t give a damn about family legacies, especially theirs.
“We have a meeting scheduled for an update in a half hour, Leo,” he said, without raising his head. “You know I do not like it when you barge in here.”
“You’ve been locked up in here for the better part of a week.” Leo’s mouth pinched. “I can’t hide it from the board any longer, Massimo. If it gets to the press that BCS had clients’ financials open for any little Dark Net hacker to find... Merda!”
It would be a disaster of epic proportions.
“It’s bad enough we lost that ten-billion-dollar contract,” Leo finished.
Massimo rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, hoping to alleviate the pulsing prick of pain in his forehead. He had been cooped up in here for too long. “It’s not my fault if people remember the trail of destruction Silvio left in his wake.”
It had taken Leo and him close to fifteen years to restore their family company—a multi-billion-dollar finance giant, Brunetti Finances, Inc.—to its original glory. In fact, it was still a work in progress.
For Greta, it was the family legacy, the name Brunetti synonymous with its prestige. Even now, she could call out half the skyscrapers littered through Milan that had housed the main offices of Brunetti Finances through its two-hundred-year history.
For Leo and him, however, it was the satisfaction of building it up again, bigger and better, a force to be reckoned with, after their father had almost brought it to its knees.
But...for the last six months, more than one contract had fallen through at the last minute. In the first one, they had found that an accountant had leaked their bid details. In the second one, the subcontractor they’d hired had been bought off. Leaving an unholy mess on Leo’s hands.
On top of that, there was this security breach Massimo had discovered a week ago in his own brainchild company, Brunetti Cyber Securities.
Someone was clearly targeting their business. The security breach was far too much a direct attack to ignore. If Silvio wasn’t being monitored 24/7 at a clinic with no resources at hand and no communications beyond Leo, they would know the culprit was him. Their father, once they had grown taller, bigger and stronger than him, despised being powerless.
“Are you sure Silvio’s the only enemy we have?” Leo asked, cocking an eyebrow at his brother. “What about your recent fling? She’s certainly making a lot of noise.”
“Gisela and I are done. Four months ago now.” Massimo let his displeasure show on his face. Leo had no business delving into his personal matters.
“Sì, you and I know that. Does the daughter of the most powerful banking tycoon in Italy know that? Maledizione, Massimo, the woman calls me now.”
The pain behind his eye intensified. If everything hadn’t been going so wrong, Massimo would have laughed at his brother’s expression.
Leo didn’t even give out his number to his own mistress. Who was, very conveniently, a supermodel who had a shot at the end of the world, with an expiry date of two more months, if Massimo’s calculations were right. The last one had been a CEO who met his brother once every two weeks for six months. Before that, had been a photojournalist studying migration patterns of an exotic bird species in Antarctica who went into hibernation for about ten months out of a year.
Leo seemed to have the algorithm for the best kind of mistress all figured out—distance, just as ruthless as him and ambitious. All his relationships ended on amicable footings, too.
It wasn’t that Massimo wanted a cold and clinical relationship like that. He just didn’t have the time or the energy for a deeper one. And he wouldn’t for the next twenty years at least. He doubted he knew what deep, meaningful relationships looked like, anyway. His mother and Silvio—it had been a war. Fought by her, for his sake.
“You need to do whatever is needed to make her understand,” Leo added. “Do not antagonize her father in the process.”
Massimo hated when Leonardo was right. “I’ll take care of it.”
It had been a stupid move tangling with the selfish, spoiled socialite Gisela Fiore. But after the months he’d spent designing his latest product—an e-commerce tool and its subsequent release hitting ten billion in revenue—he’d needed to play. Hard.
Which Gisela excelled at, according to her reputation. The only thing she excelled at. A torrid two-week affair had ensued. At the end of which, Massimo had been itching to get back to work. As was his reputation.
Except Gisela was still sending him alarmingly disturbing texts full of threats followed by sobbing messages. When she wasn’t camping outside the Brunetti brothers’ office building.
“Do you want to hear about the hacker or not?” he challenged Leo.
“Please.”
“I found the trail last night. I also figured out how he gained access through the multiple firewalls I built. Both times.”
“Two times?” Leo asked with cutting focus to the gist of the vast problem on their hands.
“Sì.”
“Cristo, you’re a freaking genius, Massimo. How is that even possible?”
It wasn’t arrogance that made Massimo nod. Computers were his thing. The one thing he was the master of. “The hacker is obviously extremely talented. A true genius, no doubt.”
Leo’s curse exploded in the basement. A few minutes later, his brother was all business again. “But you have the proof tying it to this person, right?”
“Sì. I used the bots to piggyback onto the malware he—”
“Normal people words, Massimo, per favore,” his brother said with a smile, for the millionth time in their lives. “Words a small brain like mine can understand.”
As