Chapter 1696 - Under Attack (8)

~ Croatia ~

Marija and Nick are watching a four-second long video they received from the team that infiltrated the Beach house.

The camera is shaky how the person is walking, and they can see the dense foliage. "I'm almost there…" The male voice was heard from the speaker. "I can see the roof of… What the…?" There was a growl and the camera suddenly rotated, and the video ended.

"What the hell?" Marija frowned while looking at the last millisecond of the video. It shows a black panther (aka Atlas) pouncing toward the camera with mouth open, deadly fangs clearly on display.

"What do they have there, a ZOO?"

Nick smiled dreamily. "Black panther. How fitting for Sarah. I always thought of her like a tigress, but now I believe that black panther is much better."

Marija rolled her eyes. Nick's infatuation with Sarah is nauseating.

She focused on the screens in front of her. "What about the others? Two teams were sent, and we got only one crappy video."

"This is from the property with less traffic." Nick pointed on the map at the land where the Beach house is. "If they have black panthers there, imagine what they have at their main location. If you want in, you better prepare an army, instead of a handful of local thugs…"

Marija bit her lower lip nervously. "We saw so many people leaving, I was confident that those properties are thin on security. I hired those guys because they claimed to be professionals, but now I see that they are useless. Based on the scene we saw, they are probably dead. Sarah and Aiden are more dangerous than I thought. Maybe there are more videos and they need to be sent…"

"I thought they are using devices that automatically upload the content to the cloud storage." Nick reminded Marija.

"True. But if they are in the range of the signal blocker, the files will be uploaded when they step out of it."

"Any news on Sarah?"

Marija exhaled in frustration. Can he stop talking about Sarah? "Not yet. But there are two more locations that are waiting for security hardware experts… I am confident that she will come out."

~ Los Angeles, the Cliffside Villa ~

Sarah was immersed in the code analysis and didn't notice that the door opened.

"Hey, I've got you lunch."

Sarah's head snapped toward JoAnna.

"Where is Aiden?"

It's not that Sarah does not like to see her sister, but Aiden promised to bring her lunch. Why is he not here?

"He is busy." JoAnna said without blinking. "Everyone is busy. I am the only one idle, so I volunteered to bring you food."

Sarah relaxed. She wanted to ask JoAnna how she managed to get down here, but then she remembered that Eve is offline and that Aiden unlocked everything. JoAnna can go wherever she wants.

Sarah stretched in her chair and asked: "Did I miss anything?"

"It's still a mess, but it seems that it's slowing down. In the last half an hour, we didn't have new incidents reported, so if it stays like that, by dinner time we will be able to get closure on the locations marked as high and medium level impact. Several teams engaged enemies and there are few cuts and bruises, but nothing serious. The kids are doing great with internet cleanup. Nala estimated that they have about 30% left. And… we had intruders."

Sarah paused. "Intruders? Where?"

"Here. Seven guys at the Cliffside Villa and six at the Beach house."

Sarah wondered, why would anyone attack their properties? This is getting out of control. Attacking warehouses and factories is one thing and it could point to a rival group or a dissatisfied business partner but going to their houses means that it's personal. So many questions, but the first thing is… "I assume that you are calm because you dealt with them."

"Yes, yes. At the Beach house, one out of six survived, and here three of out seven. The survivors are all restrained and imprisoned. I will interrogate the ones that are here once I'm done chatting with you." JoAnna's stomach growled loudly. "OK. Maybe I will have my lunch before I interrogate prisoners."

"What about your houses? Did you have intruders there?"

JoAnna paused. "I'm not sure. I assume that the staff would notify us if anything happened. I will follow up on this, just in case."

"Ask Michael to interrogate the prisoners. He is good at it."

JoAnna reminded herself not to mention Aiden's absence. He will return soon and then he will deal with Sarah (if she finds out that he left). "Michael is useful in the control room and I am idle. I want to do more than carry food around. Besides… with my truth serum, I don't need to be an interrogation expert."

Sarah smiled. "True. But your concoctions are part of your skills and they make you an expert. You've got this. Is there anything else?"

JoAnna understood that they are done. "Not really. Please, eat."

Sarah poked a piece of potato and put it into her mouth. "I will. Thanks for bringing the food. Tell Aiden I miss him."

JoAnna held onto the doorknob and paused. "He knows."

JoAnna left the room and took deep breaths while walking down the hallway. Guilt was eating her up for keeping a secret from Sarah that Aiden went to investigate blackout at the port. JoAnna knows that Sarah would like to know because if this is Jeff and her, JoAnna would be furious that they are not telling her that he went into danger.

…

"What happened?" Sophia asked JoAnna when she returned to the planning room. She saw that JoAnna's mood was off.

"I dropped off lunch for Sarah. I feel guilty for not telling her about Aiden." JoAnna admitted.

"I know. But telling her would only upset her. You know that Aiden has great skills and an even better mind, he will not do anything recklessly." Sophia tried to comfort JoAnna.

"Don't pretend that you are OK with this. I know that Jeff is safe in his office. And you know where Felix is. But Sarah believes that Aiden is here, while we are not able to contact him."

Sophia exhaled. "It will be OK. We agreed on radio silence because we can't see them. If we contact them, we risk exposing them to the enemies or distracting them when they are in the middle of a fight. Just as Felix called to say that everything is OK, Aiden will call soon."

"I know. I'm just edgy. It seems that everything is out of control. Uhm… Sarah asked us to check if our properties were attacked."

Sophia paused. "I didn't think about that. We got our security here so if someone attacks my home, my cook and the maids are sitting ducks…" Sophia swiftly got her phone and made a call.

"Oni, can you check with Charlie and Steve if their private properties were attacked?" JoAnna asked Oni while getting her phone.

Several minutes later, Sophia and JoAnna confirmed that only the Cliffside Villa and the Beach house had intruders.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Sophia said while looking at the map. She was mostly mumbling to herself, but everyone in the planning room heard her. "More than a hundred locations were attacked, but everything seems to be either sabotage or minor damage with forces that were insufficient to do anything of importance…"

"What are you saying?" JoAnna asked Sophia.

"I am saying that Felix is fixing a failure in a surveillance system that left a huge warehouse without protection, yet nothing is missing. Julius, Nico, and Beck are doing the same. The only real damage was done here by taking down Eve. Those armed men that infiltrated here and at the Beach house might seem to be insignificant but if Michael didn't spot them on the video feed and if we don't have capable people, we would suffer heavy losses. Imagine if those seven armed guys came to your house now. And they had cameras with videos of the property that they recorded as they approached it."

"You believe that Sarah and Aiden are targets and everything else was done to stretch our forces thin." Zack summarized Sophia's words.

Sophia looked at JoAnna and JoAnna understood that Sophia is implying that the Lebedev family is behind this. Who else would attack Sarah? Lebedevs definitely know that Sarah is close to the White, Smith, and Long families and that she would help if they are in trouble. And even the mysterious call that Samara reported of a female with a heavy Eastern European accent supports that theory.

It all fits, but JoAnna found one thing that doesn't. "No. If they made their move, mom would let us know."

Sophia gave a small nod. "True. Let's hope that I am wrong because if I am right, this will not end here…"

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