Triple Team: A Military Reverse Harem Romance Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Books by Cassie Cole

  1 - Juliana

  2 - Juliana

  3 - Juliana

  4 - Donovan

  5 - Juliana

  6 - Juliana

  7 - Donovan

  8 - Juliana

  9 - Juliana

  10 - Gregor

  11 - Juliana

  12 - Juliana

  13 - Juliana

  14 - Michael

  15 - Juliana

  16 - Michael

  17 - Juliana

  18 - Juliana

  19 - Gregor

  20 - Juliana

  21 - Juliana

  22 - Donovan

  23 - Juliana

  24 - Juliana

  25 - Juliana

  26 - Juliana

  27 - Juliana

  28 - Juliana

  29 - Gregor

  30 - Juliana

  31 - Donovan

  32 - Juliana

  33 - Michael

  34 - Juliana

  35 - Juliana

  36 - Juliana

  37 - Juliana

  38 - Juliana

  39 - Donovan

  40 - Juliana

  41 - Juliana

  42 - Juliana

  43 - Juliana

  44 - Donovan

  45 - Juliana

  46 - Gregor

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scene

  Sneak Peek - All In

  About the Author

  Triple Team

  By Cassie Cole

  Copyright © 2019 Juicy Gems Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior consent of the author.

  Edited by Dorothy Eller

  Follow me on social media to stay up-to-date on new releases, announcements, and prize giveaways!

  www.cassiecoleromance.com

  Books by Cassie Cole

  Broken In

  Drilled

  Five Alarm Christmas

  All In

  Triple Team

  Shared by her Bodyguards

  Saved by the SEALs

  1

  Juliana

  “My name is Juliana Ellersby,” I said from the podium, “and you all probably know me best as the mysterious fingers on a scary looking keyboard.”

  There was a scattering of laughter through the room. Polite laughs. The crowd for this break-off session of the convention was bigger than I’d expected. More than half of the folding chairs arranged in rows before me were full. Not bad for my first presentation at Defcon East, the second largest hacking convention in the world.

  Here’s hoping I don’t totally suck.

  “I’m not joking,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh. “You know that stock footage they show on the evening news whenever there’s a story about cyber crime? A faceless person banging away at a keyboard while a voice-over ominously warns about identity theft and data protection? Those are my fingers. And to be clear, I’m not being metaphorical. Those are literally my fingers.

  “I was in the Army before moving into the private sector. My first real job was interning at CSCG, or Cyber Security Consulting Group. My first week as an intern, the local news station came to interview my boss about a big data leak at a local company. I was merrily doing busy work in the corner of the room while the camera guy took B-roll footage. Turns out he zoomed in on my hands typing, and voilà!” I snapped my fingers. “I became a star.”

  The audience laughed more genuinely now. Relief flooded through my body like water dousing a fire.

  “I wasn’t even doing anything interesting!” I went on. “Some mindless data entry. Remember that the next time you see a story with that stock footage: that’s not a hacker. That’s an intern writing Excel formulas!”

  The crowd surprised me with a small bit of applause. Legitimate applause, not just the polite kind people gave someone who was struggling. In the front row, my boss gave me a big thumbs-up.

  “And that’s a great metaphor for cyber security in general,” I said. “Half of what the world sees is inaccurate, and none of what the world hears is correct. That can make explaining the intricacies—and the importance!—of network security incredibly difficult. That’s part of my specialty at the Cyber Security Consulting Group. Cyber security education. Because we can’t protect our corporate environments if we can’t convince the stakeholders it’s important.”

  I launched into my formal presentation on the projection screen. Speaking in front of a crowd of strangers was easier now that I’d broken the ice with a personal anecdote. My boss, Mr. Pendleton, had been right about that. I felt calmer, more relaxed. The crowd knew me now.

  I’d been at CSCG for four years, but in that time I’d risen quickly. Mr. Pendleton didn’t care about my spotty work history or embarrassing discharge from the Army, and once I was an intern I was able to bust my ass and get hired as a full-time Network Security Analyst. My boss liked to call me the sharpest arrow in the CSCG quiver, and I knew he wasn’t just trying to inflate my ego.

  Other companies hired us to come in, evaluate their network, and point out all the ways they were vulnerable to intrusion. In the last 30 years, mankind had replaced all its physical data with digital storage in the cloud or on local servers. As such, corporate espionage was the greatest threat most companies would ever face. Not just from competitors, but from countries like Russia and China. Technology moved so fast that suddenly most companies found themselves playing catch-up on cyber security.

  Because of that, business at CSCG was booming. So much so that Mr. Pendleton was now forking over the money to not only attend these hacker conventions, but also give presentations. A small price to pay for otherwise free marketing for our consulting company.

  “Now, I’m going to show you a trick I’ve learned to help convince non-technical people that they’re vulnerable,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. “I’ve got a port-scanning device broadcast app on my phone. Custom developed by the fine minds at CSCG. It collects data on all the nearby Wi-Fi networks and hotspots broadcasting, as well as any stray Bluetooth pings. Of course, this is a hacker convention so some of you are probably broadcasting as a honeypot to lure curious people to connect, but the rest of you…”

  I opened my app and navigated to the Bluetooth Handshake section. Phones with Bluetooth enabled were constantly sending out a “handshake” signal to attempt to connect to other devices. It was reasonably secure; I couldn’t hijack that signal and run remote commands on the device. But there was a lot of other interesting data I could see…

  “Would the owner of Sam’s Phone please stand up?” I said when I found a good candidate in the app. “Sam Driscoll, it looks like?”

  A balding man in a sports coat stood up in the third row. “I’m Sam,” he said, raising his hand nervously.

  “Do you mind if I pick on you for this demonstration?” I asked. “I promise not to reveal anything too embarrassing.”

  He hesitated. Nobody wanted to appear vulnerable in front of their peers, especially at an event like this. But he also didn’t want to look like he had anything to hide, and his coworkers sitting next to him were laughing and elbowing him to go on, so he said, “Yeah, sure, do your worst.”

  “From the simple Bluetooth signal you were broadcasting, I know the name associated with your Apple ID: Sam Driscoll. I can see the top three Wi-Fi networks you regularly connect to: Home-2G, Home-5G, and WellsFargoHQ. Uh oh. You work at Wells Fargo?”

  I expected him to say he was one of their IT grunts, or a Net
work Engineer. He cleared his throat and said in a quiet voice, “I’m the Deputy CFO.”

  A few gasps and nervous laughs went up in the crowd. Yikes. I’d better not reveal too much or I’ll have the SEC knocking on my door on Monday morning.

  “Well, Sam Driscoll, if I’m a potential hacker I now know you work for one of the four major banks. You’re a perfect target. Maybe I dig deeper on your phone, or start focusing on this laptop that connects to your personal hotspot the most. I won’t say the information out loud, but I have the computer name, MAC address, and serial number right here. Plenty of info to start scanning ports and looking for exploits. Or maybe I throw some targeted phishing campaigns at the email address registered to the Apple ID. I even have your SIM card data, which an especially enterprising hacker could use to track your location if you have any Location Services apps running.” I scrolled down in my app. “Oh! Here’s a piece of info I can reveal. The last song you streamed in your car was Poker Face by Lady Gaga. You have good taste.”

  The crowd laughed. I was afraid I had gone too far, but Sam’s coworkers were laughing too and nudging him like this was a conversation they had had many times before.

  “Let’s have a round of applause for our gracious guinea pig, everyone,” I said. “And Sam: if you want help locking down your broadcast settings, give CSCG a call and we’ll be happy to give you a free consultation.”

  Once the crowd stopped clapping I went through the rest of my slides. I’d practiced them for hours and hours so it was easy, and even though my ending was a little awkward I got another nice round of applause. But I wasn’t done yet because a microphone was set up in the aisle and people formed a line for the Q&A portion.

  This was the part I’d been dreading.

  “Umm, hello,” said the first guy in a monotone voice. “I have a question about firewall port forwarding and the issues with…”

  An interesting mix of people came to these hacker conventions. There were two general types: industry professionals who wanted to make their environments more secure, and hacking enthusiasts who may or may not have had bad intentions. These hacking enthusiasts were colloquially organized into two groups White Hat hackers and Black Hat hackers.

  There were lots of the former here at Defcon East. People who used their skills to harden the security at companies or government agencies. I got two questions right off the bat about what to do when a CEO refused to allocate a proper IT security budget, the best way to convince them, and how to protect an environment with the smallest amount of money. Next came the owner of a small printing press outside of Boston who didn’t have the first clue where to begin protecting the 15 computers at his business, and how to know if the Chinese had hacked into his printing equipment so they could pirate his books overseas.

  Black Hat hackers, on the other hand, were more nefarious. They ranged from script kiddies who were only skilled enough to copy and paste someone else’s trojan horse or virus onto a network share, to the more adept hackers who searched for zero-day vulnerabilities in operating systems and then sold the exploits to larger hacking groups or countries. The kinds of guys who, when they got caught, were given prison sentences longer than pedophiles.

  The Black Hats weren’t as common at these conventions as they used to be. For one thing, the price had become prohibitive: what had once cost $100 now cost $2,500 for a weekend pass, which was tough for someone screwing around as a hobby to afford. And for another thing, people believed the NSA and other three-letter agencies kept a close eye on who attended these conventions. Putting names onto watch lists.

  I wasn’t sure how much of that I believed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either.

  But regardless of the type of hacker that attended the conventions, it was trivial to tell them apart. White Hats wore suits and carried pristine laptops under their arms, or in expensive leather briefcases. Black Hats were more like your stereotypical hacker kid who lived in his or her mother’s basement. Dark hoodie, greasy hair, acne like a teenager, and a laptop covered with stickers from conventions or music festivals. The differences between White and Black were stark and obvious as I took questions.

  But then someone I couldn’t place stepped up to the microphone.

  He was the most muscular man I’d ever seen in my life. He wore a blue polo shirt tucked into jeans, and although the shirt must have been an XXL it was filled with muscle pressing tight against it. He had wavy blond hair and a face like a supermodel.

  All in all, he was nothing like the White Hats or the Black Hats. Totally out of place at the convention.

  “Hi,” he said in a deep, commanding voice. “I have a question…”

  Military, maybe? He had the look of an officer who was here to get information, though most military techs insisted on wearing their camo to these events so everyone would know who they were.

  “Good, because that’s the Q in Q&A,” I said, feeling proud of myself that I could think of a joke so quickly. “Ask away.”

  “How did you get started in this business?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, there are lots of ways to become a Network Security Analyst. The most straightforward way is to get a bachelor’s degree in Networking…”

  “I’m sorry,” the man interrupted in that deep, smooth voice. “I didn’t mean in general. I specifically meant you. Juliana Ellersby. How did you get started in this business? What first made you interested in computer security?”

  I laughed it off. “Well, I was lucky enough to get an internship at CSCG, and then take night classes to get my degree.”

  “But before that,” he insisted. Jesus fuck, the way he gripped the microphone stand in his fist… “You must have been interested when you were younger. Ever do anything exciting before becoming one of the good guys?”

  I laughed it off again because I didn’t want to answer that question honestly. “I was interested in computers long before CSCG, sure, but nothing very exciting.”

  One of the convention coordinators strode onto the stage and nodded to me. She turned on her own microphone and said, “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for Ms. Ellersby. Please give her another round of applause for her presentation! Next in Room 181 is a session on Firewall Port Whitelists and Best Practices. This is a closed session, so if everyone could please exit the room and re-enter with your appropriate passes visible…”

  I bowed out to retrieve my laptop, disconnecting it from the projector at the back of the stage. I packed it into my bag, threw it over my shoulder, and headed for the stage exit feeling pretty good about myself.

  I stole one final glance out into the audience. The gorgeous Q&A guy was still standing there, watching me with a knowing smile on his face.

  2

  Juliana

  “That was terrific! Absolutely terrific!”

  Mr. Pendleton was like a proud, happy grandpa. He was that way all the time, choosing to see the positive aspects of the world, which was rare for someone in our jaded industry of constant threats and digital espionage. Sometimes it could get tiresome, but I knew that a positive work environment was infinitely better than a negative one. I wouldn’t have traded this job for anything in the world.

  “I think it went okay,” I said.

  “Nonsense!” he insisted. “It was terrific! I told you you’d be perfect. Didn’t I tell you, Juliana?”

  “You did.”

  “And was it as hard as you thought?”

  “You were right, it wasn’t hard at all,” I admitted. “That was a lot of fun. Just like giving a presentation to a potential customer.”

  He waggled a long finger under my nose. “Public speaking is a skill like any other. It requires practice! But already I can tell you’re a natural. From now on I want you coming to each of these conventions with me. The next one is in March…”

  I was an introvert. Shocker in this industry, right? I could function fine in social situations but it drained my batteries fast. As happy as I was that the presentation had
gone smoothly, I felt physically exhausted from the effort. Not to mention sweaty. They didn’t tell you how bright those spotlights on stage were.

  Right now I was relieved it was finally over and behind me… And now he wanted me to do more of them?

  “I’m sure you want to give Philip or Charletta some opportunities,” I said casually as we left the room. “That would only be fair.”

  Mr. Pendleton waved a hand. “Nonsense! You’re much smarter than either of them, and gracious when it comes to explaining things. Your intellect really showed during the Q&A. Can you imagine Philip taking questions from the audience?”

  He laughed, and I laughed with him. “He probably would have yelled at that Wells Fargo guy for being stupid. That would have been embarrassing.”

  “Exactly. As CSCG expands, I want you helping me shoulder the load of selling our services to potential customers. You did that marvelously tonight. I can’t think of anyone better. My God, the Deputy CFO of Wells Fargo…”

  I beamed. It meant a lot hearing that. It would have been easy for Mr. Pendleton to bring Charletta, who had a body like a fitness model and turned heads when she wore a pencil skirt. I didn’t consider myself ugly, but my purple-dyed hair and curvy figure wasn’t as eye-popping as someone like Charletta. I barely filled more than half the room; she probably would have had a sellout.

  But he hadn’t brought her. He’d brought the most qualified person for the job instead. Me.

  That was rare. Really rare. Hell, these days half the companies in Silicon Valley hired actual supermodels to come promote their products at conventions. Tits over brains. Part of me couldn’t blame them. The unfortunately reality was that sex sold.

  Work for Mr. Pendleton forever, I told myself as we walked through the convention center hallway.

  “Your father would have been so proud, Juliana.”

  I smiled to myself. A comment like that no longer crippled me with grief; I was able to accept it as the compliment it was. “Yeah, he definitely would be. What’s the plan now? Head somewhere for dinner before the rush? I don’t know what Boston is like, but I don’t want to wait an hour just to get a cheeseburger.”