Chapter 23
The security rotation creates a beautiful chaos of badges scanning, radio chatter bursting in controlled intervals, and doors clicking open then shut.
I count under my breath, tracking the pattern I studied for weeks. Three guards exit through the west door while two more enter from the east, creating a seven-second window.
Perfection.
“Six, five, four…” The numbers fall from my lips in a quiet rhythm while my fingers tap the case containing my tools.
Saint and Orien flank our unmarked van, wearing maintenance uniforms that match the company contracted for the building. Rowan stands behind me, his breath warm on my neck, his body a solid presence without crowding mine.
“Three, two, one… First wave clear.” I track the monitors through the van’s tinted window. The timing plays out as I predicted. “Ready for insertion.”
Rowan touches the comm in his ear. “Positions.”
The crew confirms in quick succession.
“My turn.” I grab my toolkit, slinging the strap over my shoulder. “You good with the route changes?”
Rowan pulls his black cap lower. “Second left corridor, north stairwell, server access through maintenance. Seven minutes, thirty seconds total. I have it memorized.”
Frigid winter air burns my lungs as I slip from the van. The metallic tang of fresh snow and vehicle exhaust mingles with adrenaline in the back of my throat. My boots crunch on the salted pavement, the rubber soles with their specialized treads chosen for this operation.
The service entrance looms ahead, a nondescript metal door with a keycard reader that flashes red in silent warning. Not for long. I time my approach to coincide with the next rotation of four night-shift guards arriving as the three from the day shift depart.
My heart beats a steady rhythm. This calm focus is what Rowan pays me for. What he trusts me to maintain, even after our fight, even after I walked out, even after I came back.
“East entrance, badge activity.” Rowan’s voice comes through my earpiece. “Thirty seconds.”
I tuck myself into the shadow of a massive HVAC unit, its vibration humming through my body. The electronic ping of badges scanning echoes across the loading area, followed by the heavier sound of the security door opening.
“Now.”
I slip from cover and fall in step behind a security guard whose attention remains fixed on his phone. My fingers extract the signal cloner from my pocket, activating it as I pass within range of his badge. The device vibrates once to confirm capture.
The keycard reader accepts the cloned signal, flashing green as the service door unlocks. No alarms. No hesitation. Just access, clean and simple.
Inside, fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting harsh shadows that dance across the institutional beige walls. The corridor stretches before me, cameras positioned at calculated intervals. I’ve memorized their blind spots, the time of rotations, and their feed delays.
Rowan enters behind me, his footsteps silent on the linoleum floor. As we pull down our balaclavas from under our hats, we don’t speak. We don’t need to, our movements synchronize without words or signals.
First checkpoint. A narrow hall with dual security cameras and motion sensors.
I count under my breath, timing the camera sweep.
One, two, three, press. The maintenance keypad accepts the code I extracted from the building’s personnel files weeks ago, and the indicator light shifts from red to the amber of maintenance mode.
“Good job,” Rowan murmurs, his acknowledgment warming me more than it should.
“Three minutes to the second checkpoint.”
We move like water through the building’s lower levels, sliding past security measures designed to catch cruder intrusions. The basement corridor opens to a service junction where cleaning carts sit abandoned for the night shift. Perfect cover.
The secondary security station appears at the end of the corridor, the reinforced glass booth protected by a card reader and a biometric scanner. A camera rotates overhead, its red light blinking.
“Camera’s on a loop,” I whisper to Rowan, noting the subtle stutter in its rotation pattern. “Five-second delay before it resets.”
Rowan dips his chin toward the scanner. “How long to get through that?”
I extract a small electronic device from my kit. “Fingerprint reader uses outdated capacitive technology. Two minutes, tops.”
Saint positions his men at intervals along the corridor, each facing outward with hands near their weapons. Rowan stands beside me, his bulk blocking the camera’s view as I attach my device to the biometric scanner.
The device hums, cycling through stored fingerprint data until the green light flashes, and the reinforced door clicks open.
Rowan checks his watch. “That was fast.”
Pride floods my chest despite my attempt to remain detached. “Told you it was outdated.”
The hallway beyond leads to a second set of security doors, which require both a keycard and an access code. I crouch before the reader, extracting a thin metal tool and a microfiber cloth from my kit.
“Last swipe was sixteen minutes ago.” I peer at the slight residue on the keypad. “Fingerprints on three, five, eight, and nine.”
Rowan’s warmth radiates into me as he guards my back, his attention shifting from me to the corridor behind us. No micromanagement. No hovering. Just trust in my abilities and vigilance for threats I might miss while focused on the lock.
The code falls into place, and the door clicks open. Beyond it waits the server room, our actual target. Cold air rushes out, carrying the clean scent of electronics and air conditioning fluid.
Server racks stretch toward the ceiling, blinking lights creating a constellation of greens and reds.
The hum of cooling fans fills the space with white noise, perfect for masking our movements.
This room houses backup data for half the financial district, including the incriminating records we came for.
“Control, status?” Rowan murmurs into his comm.
“Clear for six minutes,” comes the reply. “Guard rotation on schedule.”
I approach the central console, fingers dancing across the keyboard to bypass the login screen. The security system is sophisticated but predictable. Corporate networks always sacrifice certain vulnerabilities for convenience.
“Ready for the final push.” My fingers hover over the keyboard as I turn to Rowan. “Once I’m in, we have ninety seconds before the system auto-alerts security.”
I bypass the login screen and plug into the access control panel mounted beneath the console. Most corporate systems layer convenience over security. Maintenance ports are always the weak link.
A line of text scrolls across the lower corner of the monitor.
Remote access verification pending.
I freeze.
“That new?” Rowan asks.
“Yeah.” I switch from the network interface to the hardware override port. “They’re flagging external panel access.”
The message disappears before I can trace its origin.
I don’t like that.
“Can you work around it?” Rowan asks.
“I don’t need to.” I reroute through the physical control board instead of the cloud interface. “They built the system to trust its own hardware.”
He shifts closer to the door. “Clock’s running.”
“Got it,” I say and continue.
The screen flashes green, granting access to the backup suite beyond the final door, a climate-controlled vault protected behind reinforced glass. This is where my skills matter most, where all the planning and timing narrow to a single mechanism.
I approach the biometric reader paired with a redundant keypad. It’s a corporate redundancy that assumes two layers mean safety.
My device attaches to the maintenance port beneath the scanner housing. Most biometric systems have a diagnostic mode built in for technicians, and they never expect someone else to understand how to trigger it.
I override into service access, inject a stored print pulled from personnel files, and wait for the confirmation pulse.
The light shifts.
Green.
“We’re in,” I murmur.
Rowan relays guard positions to the team through the comms while maintaining his position at my back.
The vault pulses with its own heartbeat, fans whirring, hard drives clicking, temperature regulators humming. Rowan moves behind me, his attention shifting from the door to me and back.
“Server cluster fourteen.” I scan the racks of blinking lights, following the numbered sequence along the floor. “Should be third column, second rack.”
My fingers brush across the cold metal cases, each containing terabytes of information worth millions to the right buyer. Or the wrong one. The target is warm beneath my touch, power flowing through its circuits.
“Found it.”
Rowan crosses the room in two strides, his focus locked on my hands as I trace the outline of the data core’s housing. “How long?”
“Extraction takes forty-five seconds.” I unzip my bag, pulling out the specialized tools needed for a clean removal. “Another thirty to swap in the dummy core so they don’t realize it’s missing right away.”
The server hums under my fingertips as I release the primary locks. The casing slides open, revealing the cluster of hard drives nestled inside. I insert the extraction tool, its blue light indicating proper connection.
Rowan kneels beside me, so close his shoulder brushes mine. The contact sends electricity through my skin, but unlike days ago in his bedroom or at the Blue Note, this heat channels into focus rather than distraction. His hand extends, ready to receive the drive once it’s free.
“Twenty seconds.” I turn the extraction key, listening for the release mechanism to engage. “Ready with the container.”
He pops open a foam-lined case, the padding custom-cut for our target. His movements mirror mine, anticipating each need without the need to speak.