*REBEL SIMMONS POV*

I held my breath as the tension in the silent room grew thicker by the second. It was as if everyone was frozen, their gazes locked on the blinking device I held within my hand.

I furrowed my eyebrows as I recalled Skinkoli's words from the day I interrogated him:

"Pavlovski is everywhere, including your impenetrable little fortress. He sees everything. He knows everything. He can't be stopped."

Is Stephan... a mole for the Russian Mafia?

I tried to think objectively as I tried to decipher the situation. I looked over at Stephan, examining his facial expressions and looking for any sign that he was being dishonest and selling his family out. His eyes were wide, and his breathing was shallow. Stephan's slightly furrowed eyebrows and slightly agape mouth indicated that he was... confused? Shocked even?

An idea shot into my mind as I glanced at the blinking device before holding up my hands, successfully grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. 

"Before I go, there's one last thing I wanted to tell you, Dante." I said, looking at him with wide eyes while I slowly walked to my computer. 

"What?" Dante growled as his eyebrows furrowed. 

"I was fucking Stephan this entire time." I lied while bending down and grabbing my laptop off the floor. I sat down on the bed and opened it, sharply inhaling when I saw the archives were on a different page once again. 

"YOU WHAT?" Dante screamed as the room gasped. He immediately ran over to Stephan and grabbed the collar of his shirt with two hands before slamming him against the wall. 

"And he was so much bigger than you." I continued, hoping that Dante would give the reaction I was hoping for. I continued to grab a cord attached to my laptop, and quickly stuck it into the blinking device before setting it down on the bed beside me. 

Just as I predicted, Dante threw Stephan across the room, making him crash onto the coffee table, shattering it and sending his cousin hurling towards the floor. Florence, Giana, and Harry began screaming at the two men, urging them to stop fighting immediately. 

The twins looked at me for a moment, before realizing what I was doing, and quickly walked to my side. We stared at the screen intently as I began typing away, running an analysis on my computer. 

Multiple command prompt windows opened up, filling the screen. Within each window, multiple lines of code were writing itself, confirming my worst nightmare. 

I was being hacked. 

I quickly began the process of finding the virus on my computer, typing rapidly as Dante continued to throw Stephan like a rag doll. 

The code that was displayed on my computer was intricate and complex, unlike anything I've ever seen before. Instead of one program running on my software, it was as if it was multiple viruses were operating at the same time, feeding information out of my computer and transmitting it to another IP while bypassing the security system I installed. The virus was disguised as an internal code, causing my security system to read it as if I was the one moving this information. 

I began by finding out what the hell was attached to Stephan's phone, and quickly opened another window to run a diagnostic on it. Lines of code rapidly appeared on my monitor, and my eyes scanned the text as I pursed my lips. 

"YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!" Dante roared as he threw a punch at Stephan, who ducked at the last second, making Dante's fist collide with the wall. 

"YOU KNEW WHY I COULDN'T BE WITH HER AND YET YOU PULLED THIS SHIT?!" Dante yelled as he roughly pulled his fist out of the wall. Stephan quickly swung his leg forward, sweeping Dante and making him fall to the floor. 

I tuned out the noise as best as I could, reading the script to see exactly what the hell I was dealing with. Even though I have confiscated two of these devices, I was never able to extract information from them due to the fact that they were offline and unable to be powered up again. 

Based off the code I was seeing, it looks like it has an auto destruct feature, and will lock up whenever it is removed from a power source which in this case, were phones. 

I held my breath as I saw what the device was capable of. I quickly typed a few lines of code to begin tracking whoever was on the other end of this virus. I paused as my code began working, quickly running a software to trace the IP address. But when the location popped up, I furrowed my eyebrows in frustration:

Error 404

A flood of Déjà vu struck me as I read the error message. This is the exact code I used when I stole $5 Million from the Vino's, a code that is completely customized, randomizing the encryption every half second, revealing the location's coordinates under the alias Error 404. 

A small smile came to my lips as I embraced the challenge that stood in front of me. I quickly began typing, hacking into the very same code I created back in that abysmal Stanford dorm room. 

As I began typing in the code, I felt the twins hands push down on my neck, forcing me duck my head while narrowly avoiding the piece of wood that flew above us. I looked up for a brief moment to see Stephan on top of a side table, throwing pieces of debris at Dante, who was walking towards him with a deadly expression on his face and his hands balled in fists. 

I shook my head slightly before turning my attention back on the screen. I continued hacking into the system, and furrowed my eyebrows to see that whoever created this device, improved my code substantially. Instead of randomizing every half second, they got it down to a quarter of a second, making it much more difficult to find the location.

This was unlike anything I've ever seen before. If I wasn't actively getting hacked and my information siphoned, I'd actually take a moment to admire the work before me.

"YOU STUPID FUCKER!" Dante screamed once more as he grabbed Stephan's legs and swung him off the side table, making him grab onto the chandelier like a chimpanzee. 

 I smirked as the code continued to spit out Errors. Something that makes my customized code unique is the fact that I always put a backdoor, a way to bypass the code in case something like this ever happens. Granted, I've never used it before. No one has ever been able to fully hack my codes, let alone use it against me.

I entered into my software through the back end, opening up the virus and seeing the code reveal itself on the screen. I quickly identified the changes that were made to my original program, and sabotaged it before trying to locate the user once more. I sat there for a few moments, waiting to see if the code worked. 

Paris, France: 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E

I smirked as I continued sabotaging the program. I hacked into the data files within it, seeing what information they accessed and which locations they tracked. I immediately deleted it on their end, causing someone to begin writing code once more. 

It was as if I was in a battle of wits against my unknown opponent. A battle of who can out hack, out code, and out smart the other. I quickly typed away, staying one step ahead of whoever coded this virus. I countered every attack they attempted, preventing them from breaching my defenses once more and regain the information they stored. I continued to dig deeper, hacking past the device and onto their computer and mainframe. 

I accessed the stolen information from their computer, as well as began a self destruct sequence that would permanently delete this data from any external sources. I chuckled as a notification popped up, informing me that my program was successful in not only eliminating the virus, but  deleting any information they gained. 

"Nice." The twins said in unison as they smiled at me. 

"AND YOU!" Dante said as he stepped over Stephan's unconscious body and quickly walked over towards me. Giana, Florence, Harry, as well as my mother were surrounding Stephan, attempting to examine his wounds. Harry quickly had enough, and walked away as he gagged from the blood. 

"I can't believe you actually fell for that." I said while raising my eyebrow slightly. Dante narrowed his eyes at me as he examined my setup. His eyes traveled from the device, to my computer, then back up to my face, realization finally striking him. 

"I needed a... very loud distraction in case this tracker was actually a listening device." I began to explain as I gently grabbed the device that was now decommissioned. 

"What did you find out?" Dante asked, once again, gaining the attention of the room. 

"My time here is done. I don't have to share anything with you." I said seriously as I tilted my head. 

"This isn't a fucking game!" Dante hissed through his teeth. 

"I know. I'm just doing what you told me to." I said as I closed my laptop and stood up, sticking the device in my pocket. "Getting my shit, and leaving." I said as I looked at him before beginning to walk towards the door. I stepped over the debris covering the floor, when his large hand gently wrapped around my bicep. 

"Rebel." He said in a soft voice, making me look at him in confusion. "Don't go." He said quietly, his famous mood swings making an appearance once more. 

"Give me one good reason why I should stay." I said seriously as I looked at him. 

"Because... I need you." He said under his breath as he looked down at me.

"That's not good enough anymore." I said as I looked into his grey eyes. 

"...I'm... I'm sorry. For what I said. For how I've been treating you." Dante said quietly as he looked away. I wanted to believe his words. I wanted to believe that everything he was saying was truthful, with no ill intentions hidden beneath the surface. 

"We need you. I need you. I promise, I'll explain everything, just please. Don't go." Dante said as an emotionless expression began to fade away with every word. 

To say I was weary of his words would be an understatement. Dante was like a flame, beautiful to watch, yet the closer you get, the more unstable he becomes until he consumes you completely. But as beautiful and comforting as that fire is, it can only destroy, and I began to question whether I was consumed by the idea of being infatuated, or if I actually was. 

The walls he tore down were now rebuilt, laid on the foundation of his hurtful words and distant behavior. But a part of me will always be pulled to him. But is it worth being hurt by him over and over? To be questioning how he feels about me? To spend my nights alone, wondering if what we had was even real?

"Let's get one thing straight." I said as I inched closer to him. "I'm staying, because I want to stay. Not because you're asking me to." I said seriously as I stared up at him for a moment before turning around and walking towards the computer. I pulled out the device from my pocket, and rotated it between my fingers as I examined it. 

"The device was powered by the battery within the cell phone. I wasn't able to extract data from the previous ones due to the fact that I removed it prematurely." I began to explain as I stared at the device. 

"However, that didn't stop it from infecting my own computer. Even though the devices were powered down, it could still transmit a virus to whatever it was being plugged into." I continued as I narrowed my eyes. 

"It got past my security system because it hid within the internal coding, making it appear as if I was making these changes myself." I explained. 

"Genius." Giana mumbled to herself. 

"So, it can not only transmit the virus to anything it's plugged into, but it also acts as a tracker and a listening device." I said as the room hung on my every word. 

"What information was it able to access?" Dante asked seriously as he narrowed his eyes.

"Everything. The archives, the cyber security I put in place, pretty much everything I've worked on." I said as I looked up at Dante, who had his jaw clenched, most likely trying to prevent himself from saying yet another thing he might regret. 

"The good news is that I was able to delete the stolen information on their end. Since I know how to counter their virus, I can have the security systems updated within the hour. We'll also need to check everyone's phones, just in case." I said, staring at Dante with a serious expression on my face. 

"Then what are we waiting for?" Dante said quickly before he began to walk towards the door. 

"Well... we have a bigger problem we have to handle first." I said as I tilted my head, making Dante freeze mid-step and look at me over his shoulder. 

"And what's that?" Dante asked as I gently tossed the device up in the air.

"We have to figure out what side Stephan's on." I said as I caught the device in my hand and looked down at Stephan's unconscious and bloody body on the floor.