With that, I walked away and didn’t look back.
He didn’t follow us out; he had no reason to, nor did he have any need to. My attitude had been enough to make him come to his senses and realize that trying to claim custodial rights over Summer was a lost cause. If he dared piss me off, I would go to much further lengths to hide Summer away than just transferring her to another school.
While in the car, I snuck another look out the window at the café while John was busy buckling his seatbelt. “I have a weird gut feeling,” I told him, frowning. “call some of your best men from the company’s IT department over to the house.”
He silently considered the idea for a moment before taking out his phone and swiftly tapping the screen several times. After that, he started up the car engine and drove us home.
Half an hour later, we arrived at the Stovall residence, where a group of five or six nerdy-looking boys wearing glasses and a similar style of checkered shirt were already waiting for us inside.
“Mr. Stovall,” they politely greeted, bowing in John’s direction.
John made a simple sound of acknowledgment, turning to face me. “The nation’s highest-ranking graduates in the IT field this year are all here. Just tell them whatever you need from them. They might seem a little dense, but they’re good at what they do.”
I nodded, stepping forward and cutting to the chase. “Have you all brought your laptops?”
“Yes, Ms. Stovall,” the guy in the corner called out loudly. His gaze was fixed on the floor, and I could tell he was nervous from how badly he was trembling.
The rest of them weren’t faring any better; some were clenching and unclenching their fists nervously, while some were hanging their heads. I gave John a questioning glance, as if to ask, “Are you sure these guys are the real deal?”
He only crossed his arms, proudly lifting his chin in the air as if anticipating my reaction.
His self-confidence left me with many suspicions, but I had no other choice except to trust him.
Clearing my throat and taking a deep breath, I announced, “I will send some information regarding the Crest family as well as the log in details and password to my personal account to each of your smartphones I want you all to spare no expense in investigating the Crests’ criminal history or finding out anything else that will give us an upper hand over them. Got it?”
“No problem, Ms. Stovall!”
The loud bark startled me, and I turned towards the source of the voice to see the boy from earlier staring at me intensely. His attitude had changed completely from before, as if a switch had been flipped.
After holding his stare for a few seconds straight, he suddenly lowered his voice and ordered, “Let’s go!”
The rest of the boys instantly got moving, bowing before me before lining up and heading for the dining table where they had their laptops already turned on and ready to go.
In the blink of an eye, the room was filled with the furious, rapid clicking sounds of multiple keyboards.
Taking a step closer and leaning in, the once stiff boys were now all gazing intently at their screens, eyes slightly squinted as the tips of their fingers flew across the keyboard at inhuman speeds.
I nodded in satisfaction. I would have expected nothing less from John.
About ten minutes later, the guy closest to me ceased his actions and turned the laptop around to show me the screen. “It’s all done, Ms. Stovall,” he explained matter-of-factly. “All of the Crest family’s finances have now been frozen. They will not be able to spend a single cent of it unless I remove the virus.”
“Good work.” I reached out and patted his shoulder in an act of encouragement.
The words had barely left my mouth when I heard someone yell, “Something’s wrong! There’s someone trying to rewrite our program, and they’re doing it rapidly! Mine is getting destroyed!”
Everyone else instantly snapped out of their dazes and got back to work on their laptops. Their anxious expressions made even John and I feel slightly nervous.
In the following fifteen minutes, I witnessed what I could only call “utter defeat”.
The group of initially enthusiastic technicians was slowly being taken down one by one. First, their laptops were being controlled remotely, and then their firewalls were getting taken down, and so forth. In the end, I saw the laptop nearest to me completely shut down by itself, unable to be rebooted no matter what its owner tried.
