Chapter 1280 - Cracking The Encryption

~ Seattle, Hill family's villa ~

Stella and Edward are enjoying their time back home.

It feels like forever since they have been here and at the same time it's as they never left. Everything is in its place and even the bedsheets smell the same, exactly how they remember them.

The two of them are currently in the Edward's hidden room, which he uses as SP3CT3R.

The USB Ivan gave them has an advanced encryption and it requires power of Edward's custom made computer as well as all the servers in the basement in order to crack it within a reasonable amount of time.

Edward is extra-cautious in case the USB has hidden traps. After all, it came into their hands from King's right-hand man and they can't just take it as safe. There is always a chance that it can damage hardware which is used to read its contents or erase all data, or to trigger some tracking feature, or to implant a secret program which will silently record activity and send it at certain time. But Edward is cracking it methodically while ensuring none of those happen.

While Edward is monitoring the progress, Stella is watching videos from Sarah's birthday party.

She is watching Sarah's and Aiden's spar match for the sixth time (or maybe seventh). This time, the video is playing in slow motion. 

"I can see that it's impressive, but why do you look like you are planning something?", Edward asked Stella.

"Not planning… But I understand Vasily and from where he got this ambition to make Sarah the Grand Elder. Sarah is amazing. Her form is near perfect and her speed is astounding. And she is so young. In truth, I would have trouble defeating her if she fights me like this, and I have a feeling that here… she is holding back."

"Eh? Are we already at the stage where the younger generation will take over?"

Stella stifled a laugh. Recently, Edward is more sensitive about the fact that they are getting older. Must be because of all the free time he has since they are staying with Lebedev's.

"Why not? We can retire.", Stella said cheerfully. 

Edward exhaled. His idea of retirement are cruise ships and vacations and they are nowhere close to that. He reminded her: "We are not retiring in order to help our girls."

"True. And I have no regrets."

"I have no regrets either. You said that you understand Vasily?", Edward wanted to bring Stella back to the topic.

"Yes, yes.", Stella confirmed that she remembers her statement. "Now I am in a position to observe how the council of Elders works, Konstantin specifically. I see that he is not alone. He has a lot of assistants and other people of trust. As you know, each of the Elders has the information only about the area he (or she) is responsible of. And the Grand Elder is the one who has the access to everything. He would not be able to hold all the strings if he does not have capable people of trust by his side. I believe that Vasily can win against Konstantin in a fight, and I always wondered why he is not challenging his position of the Grand Elder. And now I know why. Vasily is alone. He was never a guy to trust others, and that prevents him from reaching the top. People follow him out of fear and benefits, but that does not guarantee loyalty. Even if Vasily wins against Konstantin in one-on-one match, and gains the title of the Grand Elder, he would not be able to stay in that position."

"And Sarah has the skills and capable and loyal people around her.", Edward ended instead of Stella.

Stella nodded in agreement. "If Sarah is the Grand Elder, it would not be only Sophia and Anna who would support her, but Aiden, Jeff, and Felix, and those are just from the family. Even if Vasily does not value them individually, he can't neglect that Aiden and Jeff are from the White family and that Felix himself has a tremendous value with all the patents under his name. Their friends are capable, and Sarah's kids also. Let's not forget the army of Chaos. If Sarah joins Lebedevs, even if they don't join the family forces with her, they will be allies."

"The theory sounds good.", Edward said. "But, what does Vasily get from putting Sarah in the position of the Grand Elder?"

"He always prioritized Lebedevs. If the family can grow stronger, he will support it. As for anything beyond that, it's just guesses. On one side, if the family increases in power, so will he. But there is also a point that he always liked playing around and manipulating people. I remember that he was always the smartest one, somewhat bored, and he looked for ways to entertain himself. Sometimes, his idea of fun was… unconventional."

There was a sound from Edward's computer which indicated that the encryption cracking is over and security checks passed.

They stopped the video from Sarah's birthday party and focused on the files which started showing up on the screen.

In silence, they went through the files chronologically. There were a lot of emails and text messages.

Both Stella and Edward were surprised to find out that Vasily got his hands on Sarah and Aiden by accident. Two accidents, to be precise: first, the team which followed Sarah, found Sarah and Aiden shot on the street (Evalina shot them); second, the team which were under orders only to observe, decided on their own to take Sarah and Aiden with them and to treat their wounds.

Then they moved onto parts when Sarah and Aiden were in the hospital.

"How irresponsible, to keep them sedated for so long…", Stella grumbled. "How come they are not thinking about the consequences…"

Ten seconds later, Stella paused.

"She was pregnant…", Stella's voice was weaker than a whisper.

In the next moment, Stella's whole body jolted, and she roared: "I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!"

"Calm down…", Edward pacified her while trying to stay composed himself. "I know it's hard… but let's not go crazy before we read everything…"

"How can you be so calm?!", Stella shouted.

Edward exhaled. "We don't know how legit this information is, do we?"

Stella grimaced. She was so angry that she could not control herself. "Why would Ivan give us fake data?"

Edward shrugged. "I don't know. Why would he give us any data?"

Stella was breathing heavily while thinking about Edward's words. She can't deny that he is right. They don't know why Ivan gave them this.

"How much we know, Ivan does not like you. And he does not like that you are back in the family. What if the purpose of this is for you to lose control and attack King and self-destruct?" Edward saw that Stella relaxed slightly and said: "Let's read through everything, but don't take it for granted. OK?"

"Why bother reading if we can't trust it?"

"Once we read through this, I will verify it." Edward saw that Stella is looking at him suspiciously, so he added an example: "Like this pregnancy… Since we know that Sarah was not pregnant after this incident, there should be something in her medical records."

Stella knows that in normal cases, that is true, but JoAnna is monitoring health for both of her sisters. "What if Anna concealed it?"

"Even if it's not in the official medical records, something as big as that will be somewhere.", Edward looked at Stella and narrowed his eyes. "Are you now doubting my capability to find information?"

"No. Once you are onto something, you find it."

Edward smiled. "Good. Now sit here, do your best to relax and let's see what else these files are saying…"

About two hours later, Stella and Edward are in the living room on the sofa.

"Now what?", Stella asked.

"We divide work. Let's pick points of interest and I will verify if they are true or not."

Stella heard him say that they will divide work, and that Edward will do verifications, but…"What will I do?"

"You have the part of finding out why Ivan gave us this. It can be all true, all false, or something in-between with some parts fabricated…"

"OK. The drugs mentioned as administered to Aiden to put him in a coma… let's send that information to Anna. She can verify if it's the correct one or not.", Stella suggested. "I can ask Owen to look for that in the data of Lebedevs, but that might alert the family. Medical information is strictly guarded. Of course, this is with assumption that Ivan is working behind King's back…"

Edward agreed and added: "If that is the case, then we have a question why Ivan is working without King's knowledge. Is he working to support him secretly or to backstab him or is this something unrelated to King? If it's backstabbing, Ivan probably has someone who is calling the shots. And for these drugs, if Anna asks from where we got it, we can say that you found it in the records of Lebedev family, which is not far from the truth…"

"How much of information digging can you finish before we leave?", Stella asked.

Edward thought about this: "When we return, I want to take some of my equipment with me... They know that I am a software developer, so it will not be strange if I bring with me a motherboard or a hard drive, and once we are there, I can assemble my own rig..."

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