Leo looked on as the game they were playing unfolded in front of him. For some reason, he felt bored out of his mind while everyone around him seemed to be enjoying it. Selected individuals were divided into two groups—men versus the women—to play the game. They were playing Halloween charades. Now, Leo had lost interest and thought they were all better off dancing and having some of the food. Those who watched on whispered under their breaths with drinks in their hands. They weren’t supposed to give any clues to those who played the game. Leo thought it would be better if he were somewhere else for a change.
He looked around the room for Carly, and he found her still hanging around with Sabrina. The two of them stood close to each other and whispered as they watched the game. With the way everyone attentively watched, he would have taken this chance to grab Carly and go chill in his office. Right now, pulling Carly away from Sabrina looked like the wrong move. The last thing he needed was for Sabrina to notice the two of them sneak out of here. There has been a lot of gossip going round about Angel and him. The last thing he needed was to drag Carly into it. As much as he wanted the whole world to know about him and Carly, they had to take their time. Rushing things was only going to bring more problems.
Leo finished his drink and put the cup away on a table. He decided to leave the place and do a little walking around. Then he remembered that Angel was taking care of the kids. Maybe what they are doing is more fun than what’s going on here, he thought to himself. Leo started to make his way out of the pool office area and to the boardroom.
When he got there, he could hear music playing from inside. He opened the door a little to take a peek. He found the children in the room dancing, and as soon as the music stopped playing, they froze. Leo couldn’t help but smile as he fully opened the door and entered the room. He turned towards the front of the room where Francesca stood with the stereo. He noticed that Angel wasn’t in the room, and neither was David. Where are they? He asked himself.
Francesca noticed Leo enter the room and played the music. The kids went on with their game as they continued to dance. She made her way over to Leo, passing through the small crowd.
“Francesca, where is Angel?” Leo asked. “I don’t see David in here either.”
“The two of them left together,” said Francesca. “The way I saw it, it seemed urgent. Angel had left the room at first but came back with a child and called David to go with her. She said she needed him for his expertise on something.”
“Did Angel say what it was?” Leo asked, looking curious.
“No, she didn’t. But she did look worried. I would’ve gone with them to see what’s going on, but I was told to look after the kids.”
“Okay, I’ll go check them out. Any idea where they could be?”
Francesca shook her head and went back to the stereo. Leo went for the door and walked out. As he closed the door behind him, he looked down the hall on both sides, wondering where the two of them might have gone. Taking a quick guess, he went to the left side. When he reached the end of the hall, he stopped to look at both sides again. But this time, he didn’t have to guess, for he saw one of the doors to the offices open, and light was coming through the open door.
Leo made his way over there, and when he stood by the door to look into the room, he saw Angel on the right side of the room, standing behind the chair David was sitting on as he worked on the computer. The two of them looked at the screen. David looked more focused as he typed away on the keyboard. Angel had a grim look on her face. The ambience the two portrayed was one with a sense of urgency to get something done.
Angel noticed that someone had entered the room, and she looked up to see Leo. The look on her face softened a little when she saw him.
“Leo, you’re here,” said Angel.
Leo walked into the room. “I was told by Francesca that you and David left the boardroom in a hurry.” He now stood in front of her and David. “What’s going on?”
“It’s not good, I’m afraid,” said Angel as she looked at the computer screen. Then she looked back at Leo. “We’re being hacked.”
“Hacked?” Leo couldn’t believe it. For a moment, he felt she was joking.
Angel walked round the desk to stand next to Leo. “Yeah, we are. I called for David as soon as I saw the computer screen acting weird. He’s working on it right now.”
Leo shook his head, as he still couldn’t believe it. “Who could be hacking us? I thought the company server was well protected.”
“Hackers always find ways and means to get ahead of security protocols,” David answered, his eyes never leaving the screen. “I’m doing all I can to keep them out and establish new protocols, but it won’t be that easy. I’ll need someone to go to the server room and check on our server. I’ll need the IT manager here to explain the situation. He’ll know what to do. I’ll continue to buy us some time, but the sooner he gets to working on the hardware server in the server room, the better.”
“I’ll go tell him,” said Leo.
“Make sure not to draw any attention,” said Angel. “We don’t need everyone finding out. It will cause them to panic. The last thing we want is to ruin everyone’s night.”
“I agree,” said David. “The less people know, the better. It’s no use for me to work under pressure. You might want to tell Mr. McDonell too. Only him.”
“Sure,” said Leo. He and Angel shared a look before he quickly turned around and headed for the door.
Leo quickly made his way to the pool office, and he still found the game going on. It wouldn’t be long until the game was over and the food would be served. He looked around for the IT manager and his father. He spotted the IT manager, Mr. Finch, leaning against the cubicle on one end of the room dressed in a dinosaur costume and silently talking to his wife. He’s a stout man with a brown moustache and wears horn-rimmed glasses. He was serious when it came to his job, but he was a family man all the same. He has two daughters, both of whom are in the boardroom right now.
When Leo reached him, he excused himself and asked Mrs. Finch if he could steal her husband for a while. Mrs. Finch had no problem. Leo asked Mr. Finch to follow him out of the pool office. Mr. Finch obliged, and as soon as they entered the hall, far from the pool office, Leo stopped and told him the situation in a few words. Mr. Finch quickly went to the office David and Angel were in. Leo quickly turned back to the pool office to look for his father. He found him by the buffet table with his mother and Diana. He walked over to his father and asked if he could talk to him in private. His father went along with him. Everyone else was still focused on the game, and Leo couldn’t have been more grateful for Eric for having the power of capturing people’s attention with his funny commentary.
“Dad, we have a problem,” said Leo as they walked down the empty hall.
“What is it?” Mr. McDonell asked.
“We’re being hacked. Angel discovered it and called David to sort out the issue.” They turned to their left into the next hall. “Mr. Finch is with them now.”
“How is all of this happening right now and on Halloween?”
“I’m not sure. It could be that our server has been hacked or something. We just hope and pray that most of our important data hasn’t been compromised.”
The two of them entered the Accounts office, and Mr. Finch, in his dinosaur costume, stood behind David, who still sat at the computer, both their eyes fixed on the screen. Angel stood in front of them as she silently watched. She turned around when she heard Mr. McDonell and Leo enter the room.
“How bad is it?” Mr. McDonell asked as he approached. Leo closed the door behind him.
“Right now, we need to stop the hack,” said David. “We can’t tell the extent of the damage until we do so.”
“I’ll go to the server room right away and check on it,” said Mr. Finch. “It doesn’t make any sense, though. I am certain that I had patched our server recently. There’s no way someone could have breached our security protocols.”
“We can worry about that later,” said David. “Right now, we need to check on our server, and fast. I don’t think I can hold this up for much longer. We need to identify the source of the breach. The hardware in the server room is the best place to look. I checked this computer, and this is not it.”
“It might be the server or any other computer in the workplace.” Mr. Finch turned to look at Angel and Leo. “While I go over to the server, I want you two to look through every office and see if any other computer is on. If the hardware server isn’t the point of breach, then it must be one of the computers in here.”
“I’ll help with the search too,” said Mr. McDonell. “No one will need to know about this, right?”
“No, not now at least,” said Mr. Finch. “I’ll inform a few colleagues in the IT department to help in the search. David, continue to keep those hackers out as much as you can. Once we identify the point of breach and update the server’s security protocols, we might be able to clean out the malware. Call David or me if anything comes up. Let’s get to work.”
Leo, who remained close to the door, opened it and stood aside. Mr. McDonell walked with Angel and Mr. Finch following behind him. Mr. Finch went on ahead to his office to get his laptop and inform a few of his colleagues about the hack. Angel, Mr. McDonell, and Leo decided on which departments to look into, and they split up.
Angel found herself in the Architecture department. She opened the door, switched on the lights, and checked every computer. All of them were off. She left the room and searched the other offices. Everything needed to be done in a hurry, as time was of the essence. She soon found herself heading to the Procurement department when she saw Leo coming from the other side. The department had two offices, and so coming from his end, he had obviously checked the first one. When Leo also saw Angel, he was just as surprised to see her as she was in seeing him.
“Oh, I forget how circular the halls are sometimes,” said Angel as she approached the door.
“Yeah,” said Leo. “Let’s quickly check in there.”
Angel opened the door and switched on the lights in the room. She and Leo entered the room and started to look through every computer. Angel had just bypassed the second computer when she accidentally stubbed her toe on the desk. She cried aloud since she hit her toe hard.
“Angel, are you okay?” Leo asked as he stood on the other side of the room.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Angel. She winced a little as she laid her hand on the desk for support. “I’ll be fine.”
She checked the third computer. The computer screen was off. No, not this one, she said to herself. She had to move on to the next one. Before she did, she thought she heard the soft humming of a machine. She stopped for a second as she bent her head down a little further. That was when she realized that the CPU for this particular computer was on. Strange, she wondered as she looked at the computer. The screen was off. She decided to move the mouse, and when she did, the screen went on, and what she saw confirmed it.
“I think I found our breach,” said Angel as she looked up at Leo.
Leo quickly went over to the work desk Angel was at. Angel, still with her toe throbbing in pain, sat on the chair to look at the screen. She looked around the computer, and her eyes flew down below at the CPU. She saw a mysterious-looking USB drive connected to the CPU. She looked up at Leo when he came to stand next to her.
“Could this thing be what’s causing all of this?” Angel asked as she pointed at the USB drive.
“It might be,” said Leo as he also noticed it. “I need to call David.”
Leo pulled out his phone and called. David said his colleagues would join them shortly. A few seconds later, two members from the IT department entered the room. Simon and Heather. Simon was dressed up as a Jedi, and Heather—like Carly—was dressed in a black witch’s costume, except she didn’t have a pointed hat on.
“Great, you two found the point of breach,” said Simon as he stood behind Angel.
“Angel found it, actually,” said Leo.
“Can’t we just pull out the USB?” Angel asked as she pointed at it.
“It’s not that easy,” answered Heather. “Right now, the malware has spread, so we need to isolate it first, and removing the USB directly isn’t going to help. We’ll need to unplug the Ethernet cable first.”
“I better move out of the way and let you people do your thing,” said Angel. She stood up from the chair. She walked away from the chair with a little limp. Leo, Simon, and Heather couldn’t help but look at her.
“Angel, are you okay?” Heather asked.
“Yeah, I’m good,” said Angel as she bypassed Leo. “I hit my toe real bad. I guess it was a good thing. If I hadn’t stubbed my toe, I wouldn’t have known that this computer was on in the first place.”
“Wow, really?” Simon asked as he looked at Angel in amazement. “Talk about a stroke of luck.”
“Focus, Simon,” said Heather as she tapped on his shoulder. “Let me disconnect the Ethernet cable.”
“You need to sit down, Angel,” said Leo as he pulled out the chair from the next table and placed it beside Angel. Angel sat down.
“Thanks,” she said. “You better inform your father that we have found the computer.”
“Yeah, I better do that.” Leo pulled out his phone and called his father.
In just under a few seconds, Simon and Heather managed to remove the USB from the CPU. The threat had been stopped, they told Angel and Leo. But they would now have to clean out the malware from the system and put up new firewalls and passwords. They also had to check the extent of the damage and what information might have been compromised.
“It will take a little while for us to clean this up and process what’s happened,” said Heather. “So, you two might as well head on back to the party.”
“But isn’t this a cause for concern?” Angel asked. “I mean, someone put that USB in there. Don’t you think we have to alert the authorities?”
“David already did that,” Simon answered. “We might want to keep this quiet for now. It’s no doubt that all this was an inside job.”
“Don’t you think it could be one of our guests?” Leo asked. “It can’t be our own people. Whoever it was would’ve done so a long time ago if the person worked here.”
“We can’t tell for sure,” said Heather. “If it is someone who works here, then they were waiting for the right time to do so without being seen.”
Angel stared at the blank screen of the computer. “Who works on this computer?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Simon. “But best believe that when the authorities come by, the owner of this workstation might be the prime suspect.”
The door to the room flew open, and Mr. McDonell walked in with Mr. Finch behind him.
“I hear all has been sorted out,” said Mr. Finch.
“Yes, it has,” said Heather. “All thanks to Angel. She’s the one who found the computer.”
“Well, it’s going to be a long night for some of us. We have cleanup to do, and we might want to assess what has been compromised. We might receive the authorities tomorrow considering how the night has been. So, we may want to keep that computer for forensic evidence.”
“I’ll make sure to handle that,” said Simon. “And we would have to hand this in too.” Simon lifted the USB drive that he had placed in a transparent plastic bag.
“Once we have assessed the rate of the damage, we’ll be able to inform you before the party is over,” said Mr. Finch as he turned to look at Mr. McDonell. “For now, I suggest that you, Angel, and Leo return to the party. We don’t want people wondering where you’ve gone.”
“Yes, please keep us posted,” said Leo.
“Good work, you two,” said Mr. Finch as he turned his eyes on Leo and Angel. “If Angel hadn’t reported what she saw, the hackers would’ve gotten away with everything.”
“Well, we will only know the extent of the damage afterwards, won’t we?” Angel asked.
“Yes, but if you ask me, your quick response was most vital.” Mr. Finch smiled at her. “Once you all go out there, I advise that we don’t let everyone know what has happened. The IT department will be the only ones who know about the incident after the party. They will stay behind and make sure that everything is taken care of data-wise. If there’s any personal info that has been compromised, we will advise the persons immediately.”
“Alright,” said Mr. McDonell. “We leave everything to you.” He turned towards Angel and Leo. “We better get going.”
“Okay,” said Leo. He looked down at Angel. “How’s your foot?”
“It’s fine now,” said Angel as she stood up from her seat. “No need to worry.”
Mr. McDonell led the way out as Leo and Angel followed soon afterwards. They walked in silence as they made their way back to the party. After what had just happened, they couldn’t help but feel gloomy, as if someone had just sucked the life out of them. David and the others had managed to stop the hack, but until they clean out the malware, they couldn’t tell how much damage all of this has caused.
“I wonder who could have done this,” said Mr. McDonell as he led the way down the hall.
Angel couldn’t help but sigh as she looked at Mr. McDonell. For someone who has had to take care of this company for so long, she could imagine the heavy weight on his shoulders. She wanted to tell him that she knew how he felt, but she wasn’t too sure that she actually did. Now isn’t the time to sympathize, she told herself.
“It will be hard to tell who could have inserted that USB,” said Leo. “Considering that there aren’t many cameras around the work area.”
“Let’s hope that the damage isn’t as significant as we think,” said Angel. “And we need to change the look on our faces. We don’t want the whole company to see our gloomy faces once we get back out there.”
“You’re right,” said Mr. McDonell. “For now, let’s go and enjoy the party.”
They continued down the hall, and Angel had to stop by the boardroom first to see if the children and Francesca were still there. She found it empty. It seems they had gone to the pool office to get some food.
Angel closed the door to the boardroom and found Leo waiting for her in the hall, leaning his back against the wall. Mr. McDonell had already gone ahead. For a moment, the two of them looked at each other in silence. An unsettling feeling fell between the two of them.
“Not a Halloween night I expected, to be honest,” said Leo.
“Yeah, me too,” said Angel. She slowly approached him. She brought out a thin-lipped smile. “I bet it’s taken out from both you and your father the most. Once everyone knows, it will take a lot out of them too.”
“It will be a lot to handle. Let’s hope nothing personal has been compromised from our side and our client’s.”
“There’s nothing we can do at this point but leave everything to the professionals. We had better head back. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Leo scoffed. “I bet all this has taken a lot out of you too, huh?” He couldn’t help but smile.
“Well, I had to act fast, didn’t I?” Angel asked. “My head couldn’t think straight. All I knew was that I had to look for help, and I’m glad David happened to be nearby. So yeah, all that has made me quite hungry.”
“Your quick thinking helped us, Angel. If anything, you deserve the food and a whole lot more.”
“Well, all I want is the food. Come on.” Angel took hold of Leo’s hand. “We don’t want everyone enjoying Mrs. Lance’s tuna sandwiches without us getting a bite.”
Angel tried to pull Leo away from the wall as she tried to make her way down the hall. But Leo stayed there, his back still pressed against the wall. Angel turned to look at him and tried pulling him again, her face getting puffy from pulling with all her strength. Leo couldn’t help but chuckle, as watching Angel struggle to drag him was a funny sight.
“What is your problem, Leo?” Angel asked as she stopped pulling his arm. “I’m not missing out on those sandwiches.”
“Well, you can go on without me, then,” said Leo as he smiled.
“I’m not going without you, you prick. So lift your weight off that wall and let’s go.”
Angel attempted to pull Leo again as she still held on to his hand. This time around, Leo pulled Angel towards him. Before she knew it, Angel found herself beside Leo, her shoulder leaning onto his chest. She quickly looked up at him, his strong cologne slowly starting to draw her in. His blue eyes behind the fake glasses he wore looked down at her. Angel suddenly blushed. To hide her embarrassment, she furrowed her eyebrows.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “You don’t have to show your dominance over me by doing that.”
“Was I really showing my dominance?” Leo asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “You could have gone without me since you needed to eat more than I do.”
“And leave you here to sulk on your own over what’s happened? I wasn’t going to let you.”
Leo scoffed. “And if I refuse, then would you rather stay here with me and sulk together?”
Angel didn’t know how to answer that as she continued to look at him. The muscles around her eyebrows softened, and she was no longer looking upset. Her heartbeat quickened the more she looked at him. Moreover, she found herself leaning her body onto his, finding it so warm and comfortable. It felt wrong to be close like this, and she knew it, but for some reason, it made her feel something she had never felt with any man. Not with Eric, not even with Derrick.
Leo continued to look down at Angel, and with his other free hand he held the brim of Angel’s hat, lifting it a little higher to showcase her face a little more. There was no denying that she looked wonderful tonight, and her beauty captured his whole being. With his other hand now holding hers, he squeezed it gently. Her body pressing against him stirred something in him, and he felt the urge to bring her even closer. He looked down at her lips, and he wished to press his lips onto them. He knew thinking this way was wrong, but her being so close just felt right.
“What if I don’t want to just sulk with you?” Angel found herself saying as her eyes studied Leo’s face.
“What do you have in mind?” Leo asked, his voice coming out as a whisper and getting a little deeper.
“I don’t know. Just something to make you forget all that’s happened.”
“You being here seems to be working, I think.”
Leo drew his head a little closer when Angel asked, “What do you mean?”
Leo looked deep into Angel’s eyes. “Something tells me you know exactly what I mean.” His voice came out like a whisper. “I want you to make me forget, Angel.”
Angel felt a chill run down her spine when she heard those words. She noticed how Leo’s face was closer to hers, feeling his breath on her face. She stared at his lips, which were clearly inviting her to kiss them. She wanted to; her body was urging her to bring herself a little closer, and she would get what she wanted.
But something in her snapped, bringing her back to her senses.
Angel found herself drawing herself away. “No, Leo,” she said. “We really shouldn’t be doing this.”
Leo, at first, seemed confused and wondered why Angel had drawn herself away. It finally dawned on him. They shouldn’t be doing this. All of this was nothing but a mistake.
Leo straightened himself up and sighed. “I’m so sorry about this,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I also should apologize,” said Angel, shaking her head.
The two of them stood there in silence until they heard footsteps coming into the hall. They turned to see someone they least expected to be standing there.
“Angel? Leo? What are you two doing-?”
Carly paused on her question when she looked at them and noticed something that Angel and Leo weren’t able to notice until later. The two of them were holding hands.
Angel was quick to realize it, and she started to pull Leo along with her. Leo, at first, didn’t seem to understand what Angel was doing. He looked on, confused.
“Carly, can you tell Leo to get a move on?” Angel asked as she stopped struggling to push Leo away from the wall. “We need to go and eat.”
“Huh?” Carly asked, looking even more confused. “Wait a minute. What’s going on?”
“Well, I’ve been trying to convince Leo to come with me to the pool office, but he doesn’t want to,” Angel explained. “I tried moving him, but he won’t budge.”
Leo now realized what Angel was trying to do. Carly had just seen the two of them alone together, holding hands. Once again, Angel used her sharp thinking and carried on what she had been trying to do from the very beginning. Pulling Leo away from the wall.
“Well, I just don’t feel like it,” said Leo as he put on a gloomy face. He gently pulled his hand away from Angel’s. “You can go on ahead without me.”
Carly noticed the look on Leo’s face as she approached him. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Something terrible has happened,” Leo replied. “I don’t want to bore you with the details. Not yet, at least.
“What do you mean something terrible has happened? Are you hurt or something?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” Leo sucked his teeth. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want everyone else to panic until everything is all sorted out.”
Carly looked on, worried and confused with what Leo had said. “Well, now you two are scaring me. What’s going on?”
Angel held her sister’s shoulder. “We will tell you on our way home,” said Angel. “Right now, we better go back to the party. It’s too sensitive of a topic to be discussed here.”
“I saw Mr. McDonell when I was heading over here. Could it be over the same issue?”
Angel gave a nod of her head. “We were with him, yes. Like I said, it’s a sensitive matter that we can discuss later.”
“Fine. You two can go on ahead without me, though. I was heading to the ladies’ room when I found you.”
“Alright. But please tell Leo to move. Sulking here isn’t going to help.”
Carly sighed as she looked at Leo. “I don’t know what’s going on right now, but Angel’s right. It’s Halloween, for crying out loud. If you say whatever has happened is being sorted out, then you better go out there enjoying yourself.”
Leo gave Carly a sad smile. “I guess you’re right,” he said.
“Cheer up. You and I will talk about this later.”
Carly smiled widely at Leo and her sister as she made her way down the hall hurriedly. Angel studied her sister for a second and couldn’t help but feel something felt off. If she were Carly, she wouldn’t have let the situation go that easily and would have asked more questions as to why she and Leo were alone. And she seemed to be in a hurry. Is she really going to the ladies’ room? Angel wondered.
As soon as Carly was out of sight, Angel and Leo looked at each other, an awkward silence falling between them.
“Do you want to talk about this?” Leo asked.
“Um…” Angel put her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “I would, but we have a party to go back to.”
Leo pressed his lips together. “Yeah, we better head back,” he said. “I wish we had more time to talk.”
“This shouldn’t be happening in the first place.” Angel looked down the hall, lost in thought. “I guess we were just lost in the moment, but who am I to judge? It’s best we forget that this ever happened.”
“I get what you mean. Let’s go then.”
Angel started to make her way down the hall, and Leo followed behind her. Before she turned round the corner to head to the pool office, Leo grabbed her hand from behind, stopping her from walking further. Angel turned to look at him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I didn’t get to say thank you,” he said. “For what you did earlier with finding out we were being hacked and all.”
Angel gave a small smile as she looked at him. The look in Leo’s eyes portrayed that there was more that he wanted to say to her. But his time was up as Angel drew her hand away from his.
“I was just doing what I had to in the moment,” said Angel. She turned around and quickly headed for the pool office. Leo stood there for a little while as he contemplated what could have happened between him and Angel. He shook his head, telling him to focus as he also followed Angel to the pool office.
Carly continued her way down in the hall in a rush. She looked behind her to see if anyone else could be behind her. She was sure that Angel and Leo were further from her now. She stopped and pulled out her phone from the small black bag that she carried around like a pouch. When she checked her phone, she found that she already had over 12 missed calls. She had her phone on vibrate, and it only took her a while to notice that her phone had been ringing the whole time. She called the number back, and the tone she received on the other end wasn’t pleasing.
“What the hell, Carly?” Hugo blared as soon as he answered the call. “I’ve been calling you like forever now.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” said Carly as she looked down both ends of the hall. “I didn’t realize that you were calling with all the party going on.”
“Well, now it’s too late. I couldn’t go through with the hack.”
“What? Why?”
“Someone must have been lucky to discover what was going on,” said Hugo, sounding frustrated. “They were blocking me off from another computer. At the time, no one knew where the Rubber Ducky was until later on. That’s why I was calling you to retrieve it.”
“You think they found it?”
“I’m sure they did because I’m cut out of the network. I couldn’t do much, not with someone on that other end, cutting me off. Red Lion will not be happy with this.”
Carly sighed. This was just awful, she thought to herself. “Will all this come back to us?” she asked.
“If you’re sure no one saw you, then you’re lucky because there aren’t many cameras in that place. They might launch an investigation, so I suggest that you stay clear from all that. After such a failed attempt, Red Lion wouldn’t want us to not draw any attention. For the meantime, act dumb and clueless about what’s going on, okay?”
“Sure.”
With that, Hugo cut the call. Carly looked at her phone and sighed. For some reason, she was sort of relieved that this whole hacking thing didn’t go as planned. Now all she had to do was keep herself away from the problem.
Before Carly could walk back the way she came, she heard voices and footsteps coming down the other end of the hall. She quickly went to hide round the corridor a few feet away. The footsteps became even louder, and Carly got so nervous that she couldn’t even breathe. Whoever was approaching was coming in her direction.
“Who do you think could have planted this rubber ducky?” came a woman’s voice.
“Who knows?” came a male voice. “I can’t think of anyone of our colleagues who would plan to do such a thing.”
“Thank God for Angel, right? If it wasn’t for her, we would’ve found all of our data compromised by morning.”
Carly’s eyes grew wide with surprise as she remembered what Leo and Angel told her when they met in the hall. This was what they were talking about? Carly asked herself. How was Angel able to find out? Red Lion will be furious about this and will blame it on me instead.
Carly waited until the man and woman passed down the hall, oblivious that someone was close by. Carly took a sneak peek of the pair and noticed the man carrying a plastic bag in his hand. She could make out the USB drive in it, and she sighed in frustration. No use in trying to get it now. She has to stay away from all this until everything dies down. She knows Red Lion was going to go for her throat, and he would like to know how all of this had happened. He will lose it if he finds out that Angel had actually been the cause for all of this.
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