Page 191 of Dark Night of the Soul

More than enough. If we were ready.

He’d planned for the threat the Brotherhood refused to admit was theirs. Smart. Thorough. Exactly what we needed.

“Then this isn’t prevention,” she said. “It’s preparation.”

Silas didn’t deny it. He let the silence sit there like it belonged. Then he closed the case with a soft click—final, deliberate—like the argument had been settled long before he ever stepped into this villa.

Anna leaned forward and continued to stare at the floor plan. Her mind was working, jaw tight, then lifted her gaze. The anger was still there, but it had shifted.

“So, the security system is in place now. We can see it. But that’s not the only threat,” she said. “They still have the surveillance. The data.” She looked at me then Silas. “What if there’s another way to get rid of it?”

“What do you mean, lass?”

“Get a hacker. Someone who can drop a virus or malware or ransomware. Anything that can move through their system to destroy it all,” she said. “Burn the whole thing down digitally.”

The moment she said it, I knew. She’d been thinking about this for a while. Processing. Planning. Not reacting.

Ludwig made an interested sound. Ulrich didn’t react at all except his attention sharpened, like a knife coming out of a sheath. Ulrich saw the angle. Always did.

Silas’s mouth twitched once. Not a smile. More like confirmation. “I know someone,” he said.

My pulse kicked. “No.”

“He’s the only one who can do it,” Silas said.

“You know what he’s like,” I said. He was the last person I wanted to bring into this mess.

“I know what he can do,” Silas said. “And so do you.”

“Do you know where he is?” I asked.

“Last I heard he’s not dead,” Silas said. “Which, for him, is thriving.”

Unfortunately, accurate.

Anna snickered. “Who is this mysterious person?”

“Gremlin,” Silas said.

Ulrich sucked in a breath. Ludwig nearly choked on his coffee.

“You—have a Gremlin on speed dial?” Anna asked.

Ludwig coughed once, laughing into it. “That’s not a name. That’s a handle. The kind a guy earns after he wipes a whole server and calls it a warm-up.”

Anna blinked. “Oh, so he’s a gamer, too.”

Ulrich nodded once. “We’ve all heard of him.”

“He’s got a reputation in our circles,” Ludwig said.

“And a talent for hacking,” I added. Then, “Fine. Find him. But make sure he knows this isn’t one of his games. This is serious.”

Then Anna leveled her gaze at me. “Is there anyone you don’t know?”

I shrugged. Because I didn’t need to get into that.

Silas stood. “I’ll reach out to Gremlin. If he’s interested, he’ll surface.”