Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Luke stepped out of the car Tyson had arranged and studied the office building.
Glass. Steel. Cold and polished.
He’d never liked it. That wasn’t new. Everything stood exactly where he remembered it, but now he saw the security differently. His gaze moved over the entrances, camera placements, and carefully controlled sightlines. Before, he’d read the redundancies as corporate paranoia.
Now he saw how easily the building could be locked down.
The security didn’t merely keep threats out. It controlled movement inside, containing everyone behind a polished glass facade. If Hale had built something capable of tracking magic, Luke had to wonder what other purpose those systems served.
He started toward the entrance, searching for any sign of magic. Nothing felt wrong, but that meant very little. Magic didn’t announce itself, and Luke had nowhere near enough experience to recognize it unless someone set it on fire in front of him.
The tracking system could be anywhere. Buried deep within the building. Integrated into technology Luke had walked past a hundred times without understanding what it could do.
The front desk came into view. The guard watched him with the same quiet recognition Luke had seen a dozen times before.
“Mr. Bennett.” As Luke approached, the guard reached for the security panel. “Mr. Hale is expecting you.”
Of course he was.
The panel lit green, and the guard nodded him through. Luke continued toward the elevators without slowing, carrying one question deeper into the building with him.
How much did Hale know?
The elevator doors opened, and Luke stepped inside. He pressed the button for the top floor, then settled against the wall with his hands loose and his shoulders relaxed. Anyone watching would see an employee returning from a meeting, not a man preparing to confront his employer.
The ride lasted less than a minute. When the doors opened again, Luke entered a corridor he’d walked more times than he could count. Clean lines and muted lighting directed attention toward the double doors at the far end—the entrance to his boss’s office.
His body knew the route. This time, Luke made himself notice the details.
The hallway was empty, which wasn’t unusual on the executive floor. The silence was. No footsteps behind the closed doors. No distant conversations or muted sounds of people moving through their workday.
The desk where Patrick normally sat was empty.
Luke slowed when a door farther down the corridor opened. Patrick stepped out with a tablet in hand, looked up, and then stopped.
“Luke?”
The surprise was immediate.
Good.
Luke resumed his usual pace. “Hey.”
“When did you get in? I thought—” Patrick lowered the tablet and frowned. “I didn’t see anything come through. No update, no change to the schedule.”
“My flight got moved up. I didn’t have time to loop back through you.”
“That’s…not ideal.” Patrick huffed out a breath, already recalibrating. “Fine. He’s been asking for updates all morning.”
“I figured.”
Patrick studied him for another moment, then shook off the discrepancy. “He’s in his office. Go ahead. I’ll catch up on my end.”
“Appreciate it.”
Patrick gave him a distracted wave and continued down the corridor, already absorbed in repairing the disruption to his schedule.
Luke watched him go. The confusion had been real. No guarded questions, no attempt to delay Luke or steer him away from the office. Patrick was irritated because his process had failed, not frightened because Luke had arrived ahead of a trap.
Luke trusted that assessment.
Patrick wasn’t part of whatever Hale had planned.
One less variable.
Luke continued to Hale’s office and entered without knocking.
The room was exactly as he remembered it.
He’d sat across from Hale’s desk more times than he could count, accepting assignments that came with too little information and too much risk.
Hale had never been warm, but he had always been consistent.
Then again, the youngest Hale son didn’t end up running the family empire by being unreliable.
In Luke’s line of work, consistency was close enough to trust.
Hale stood near the window. He turned at the sound of the door, and surprise broke through his composure before he could conceal it.
“Luke.”
No demand for a report. No question about the compromised drop.
Just his name.
Luke let the door close behind him. “You look surprised to see me.”
“I wasn’t expecting you yet.”
“My flight got in early.”
Not a lie.
Hale watched him carefully. “Patrick didn’t mention a change.”
“I didn’t go through Patrick.”
“That’s unlike you.”
“Yeah. It’s been that kind of day.”
Hale stepped away from the window, his attention moving over Luke with the same quiet assessment Luke had once trusted. “You look…well.”
Luke’s mouth twitched. “I try.”
Hale didn’t find that amusing. “Walk me through it.”
“You already know the drop was compromised,” Luke said. “So either you know more than I do, or you’re testing whether I’ll lie.”
“Both.”
At least that was honest.
“There was a third party,” Luke said. “Someone knew where the exchange would happen, arrived prepared, and went straight for the drive. That wasn’t a chance encounter.”
Hale’s expression tightened. “Do you think they were working for the buyer?”
“I don’t know. I never saw who gave the orders.”
Hale considered that. “Then we proceed on the assumption that the buyer still intends to complete the purchase.”
Luke studied him. “You’ve been in contact.”
Hale said nothing.
“You have.”
Silence stretched between them. Luke could continue playing the game, waiting to see whether Hale revealed something useful. On any other assignment, he might have.
This time, he didn’t have the luxury.
“What are you actually selling?”
Hale’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes. A decision—and not one Luke was going to like.
“That’s none of your—”
The air tightened.
Pressure mounted a heartbeat before something struck the glass behind Hale. Cracks spread across the wall in a sudden web, then the entire pane shattered inward.
Luke crossed the office in two strides. He caught Hale by the collar and drove him behind the desk as a black-clad figure came through the broken window.
The force of the entry should have sent the intruder sprawling across the carpet. Instead, he cleared the jagged frame and landed in a balanced crouch, one hand braced against the floor. Either he’d had a lot of practice or he had magic. Either way, it wasn’t good.
Then a second black-clad figure appeared in the shattered opening and dropped into the office behind him.
Luke reached automatically for a weapon he wasn’t carrying. Of course he wasn’t. This wasn’t supposed to be that kind of meeting.
The first intruder lifted one hand. The air twisted, compressing around Luke’s chest until pain drove the breath from his lungs. He staggered, one knee striking the carpet.
Magic.
And Connal wasn’t here.
Luke braced a hand against the desk and forced himself back to his feet. “Stay down.”
Hale didn’t argue.
The second intruder advanced toward the desk.
Luke shifted between them and Hale, tracking the distance to the office door, the scattered chairs, and the shattered window behind them.
The first intruder had knocked him down, but neither man treated him as their objective. Their attention kept returning to Hale.
This was a targeted assault. Luke was only standing in their way.
“Sir—” The intercom crackled to life. Patrick. “Your eleven o’clock has arrived early.”
Hale froze behind him.
Luke didn’t need an introduction.
The buyer.
The office door opened. The man who entered didn’t rush or hesitate. He adjusted one cuff as his gaze swept across the shattered glass, the masked intruders, Luke, and finally Hale crouched behind the desk.
Irritation crossed his face, but no surprise or fear.
“Good morning,” he said.
The nearest intruder charged.
The buyer didn’t retreat. He raised one hand with no more urgency than he’d shown while adjusting his cuff. The intruder struck an invisible barrier and rebounded into the wall hard enough to crack the surface.
Luke’s assessment shifted. The buyer didn’t merely know magic existed. He commanded enough of it to stop an attacker without taking a single step.
The other intruder attacked from the opposite side. The air warped between them, a visible distortion slamming into the buyer’s barrier. This time, the buyer braced. The impact drove him back half a step, the first visible crack in his composure.
The office shuddered around them.
Whatever arrangement Hale had made, these intruders were not part of it. Two magical forces had converged on the same exchange, and Luke had no idea what either one intended—or what would happen if one of them gained control.
He grabbed Hale’s arm and hauled him upright. “Move.”
“What—”
“Now.”
Luke dragged him toward the far wall while the buyer held off another attack. The barrier flashed under the impact, sending a wave of pressure through the room. Papers flew off of Hale’s desk and fractured glass skittered across the floor.
Luke reached the panel for the private elevator and struck the control.
Nothing happened.
“Open it.”
Hale stared past him at the fight.
Luke tightened his grip. “If we stay in this room, we’re dead. Open it.”
Another impact drove a crack through the wall beside them.
Hale slapped his palm against the scanner. The panel flashed green, and a section of the wall slid aside to reveal the elevator. Luke shoved Hale inside and followed. The buyer’s barrier flared once more as the masked intruders closed around him.
Then the elevator doors shut, cutting off the fight.
“Call Patrick,” Luke ordered. “Tell him to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building.”
Hale stared at him.
“Now.”
Hale pulled out his phone and made the call. “Patrick, pull the fire alarm. Get everyone out of the building.”
Whatever Patrick said in response made Hale’s mouth tighten.
“I don’t care about protocol. Evacuate everyone.”
Hale ended the call as the first alarm began to shriek beyond the elevator doors.
Good. At least Patrick had listened.
The elevator descended, carrying them farther from the fight. Luke turned toward Hale. There was no reason to maintain the pretense between them now.
“What did you build?”
Hale dragged a hand down his face. “They weren’t supposed to be here.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Hale shook his head as if he could still avoid the answer.
Luke stepped closer. “What did you build?”
“A tracking system.”
“Tracking what?”
“Anomalies.”
Luke held his gaze. “That’s not an answer either.”
Fear finally broke through Hale’s composure.
“Magic.”
There it was.
Hale studied him, some of the fear giving way to calculation. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I just watched one man crush the air out of my lungs while another stopped an attacker with an invisible wall. It’s been an educational morning.”
Hale continued to watch him, clearly unconvinced that explained everything.
Luke didn’t give him time to ask. “You built a system that tracks magic, and now you’re selling it.”
“It isn’t finished. We’re still refining the model and calibrating the receiver. It doesn’t—”
“It works.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Both your buyer and a team of magical attackers just tore through your office.” Luke leaned closer. “Pretty sure they think it works well enough.”
Another distant impact shook the elevator. Hale went still. “We need to shut it down. If they’re here because of the system, we remove the reason they’re fighting.”
Luke studied him. “Will that stop them?”
“I don’t know.” Hale’s mouth tightened. “But it keeps either side from taking control of it.”
“Where?”
“The control system is in the sub-basement. The servers, stored data, and internal routing are all housed there.”
“And the receiver?”
“On the roof, but it draws its data from the servers. Shut down the control system, and the receiver should go blind.”
Luke hated should, but it was the closest thing to a plan he had.
He caught Hale’s wrist and pressed his palm against the elevator’s control panel. The secured options illuminated. Luke canceled the elevator’s default lobby-level destination and chose the lowest sublevel.
“How close are you to full deployment?”
Hale hesitated.
“Numbers.”
“Ninety percent.”
Luke watched the floors tick downward. “Who else knows what the system does?”
“The project was compartmentalized. The engineers knew the components they were building, but not what the complete system tracked.”
“The buyer knows.”
“Yes.”
“Patrick?”
“No. Patrick was never involved.”
Luke had already believed that, but hearing Hale confirm it was a relief.
“The buyer pushed the schedule forward,” Hale said. “I thought I had more time before delivery.”
“You never had time.”
The elevator slowed as it approached the sub-basement.
“This doesn’t get delivered,” Luke said. “It doesn’t get sold, transferred, or finished.”
Hale frowned. “You don’t understand what’s at stake.”
“I understand exactly what’s at stake.”
The doors opened onto a narrow concrete corridor lined with pipes and electrical conduits.
Luke caught Hale’s arm before he could move toward the service exit.
“Show me the servers,” he said. “Today, this system dies.”