Chapter 24 Entropic Decay
Entropic Decay
“You need to hurry!” Penelope closed the door before her gaze drifted downward. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”
Lucia blinked. “What?”
Penelope studied her, expression unreadable. “Why aren’t you?”
Lucia stared at her, her brain still short-circuiting. She needed to get out of here, not explain her lack of footwear, though she understood Penelope’s confusion—the sight she must give.
“Why are you here?”
“Right. Montgomery will be here soon to show Ms. Lewis, an obnoxious but super-rich donor, the Madonna. She attended the gala specifically for her and was apparently disappointed it’s no longer on display.”
“Shit. Let me just…” She stored the original Madonna in the carrier, sliding her tools in their pockets, and focused on Penelope again. “Could you run interference? That way I can get out. I mean, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Jules, are we clear?”
“Yes, but not for long. Montgomery is heading your way with an entourage.”
“Now, Pen. Go.”
Penelope cast one last glance at Lucia before heading back outside.
“You need to take a right when you get out, head through the archival hallway and exit via the north service door,” Jules said.
“Thanks.” Lucia slipped out of the lab. She hurried down the suggested path, her heart pounding in her throat.
“Skye just got to the van. Do you need her to meet you?”
“No.”
Lucia flung the exit door open and burst into the humid night, her soles slapping against the rough pavement. The van waited across the loading zone, headlights off, rear door cracked.
“Skye!” she called, breath ragged.
The door flew open. Skye reached out and yanked her inside.
Lucia barely had time to gasp before—
“Hand over the carrier,” a voice barked.
She froze.
A man stood just outside the van, face shadowed, gun raised.
“What?” Her voice barely came out.
“The bag. Now.”
Lucia’s arms tightened around the carrier instinctively.
“Just drive!” Skye shouted.
“I can’t,” Jules said from the driver’s seat. “Two more by the hood. Guns drawn.”
Lucia’s breath came shallow. She twisted toward the front seat—through the windshield, two silhouettes loomed—both armed, both waiting. A trap.
“Shit,” Skye hissed. “We’re boxed in.”
“No.” Lucia clutched the carrier. “No, we can’t—”
“You want to die for it?” Skye snapped. “Give. It. Up.”
A beat.
Lucia’s pulse thrummed. Her fingers refused to let go—then did. She handed over the bag.
The man wrenched it from her arms and vanished into the dark.
Silence.
Lucia sat frozen, sweat cooling on her back, her hands shaking. She couldn’t speak. Numbness froze her in place as an oppressive silence descended upon the van.
No one uttered a word as they drove through the night back to Francesca’s.
Lucia’s phone kept buzzing in her purse, but she couldn’t bring herself to look.
They’d lost the Madonna.
Had the earlier “glitch” Jules dismissed been a warning sign?
But how did—
“Will you fucking answer your phone? The buzzing’s driving me nuts,” Skye broke the stillness, her voice raw.
Frowning, Lucia dug out her phone and opened Penelope’s messages, then replied.
We got away but lost it. Someone was waiting for us. We’re safe, en route to F. Are you OK?
She pressed send and closed her eyes.
Her phone buzzed a moment later—then again, and again—rapid-fire questions she didn’t have the bandwidth to answer. Then:
Do you want to come by tonight and talk?
I can’t. I’m not… I can’t. I’ll call you.
She turned off her phone and stared at the black screen. Her mind wouldn’t stop racing.
What the fuck happened? Who were these people, and how did they know?
After a silent drive, the van crunched along Francesca’s pebbled driveway. Lucia wanted to bolt, to beg Jules to drive her home so she could curl up under her covers and disappear.
Instead, nausea slithered through her at having to face Francesca’s quiet fury.
She slipped on her shoes.
“This is gonna suck,” Skye mumbled when Jules finally cut the engine.
“Better get it over with,” Jules said, stepping out.
Skye and Lucia lingered until Jules banged against the side of the van.
“Get moving!”
They shared a resigned look. Skye nodded and climbed out, Lucia stumbling after her.
The walk to the door felt endless, with the shadows between flower beds and stone walls shifting, lurking, waiting.
Lucia clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms. She stopped at the door, head bowed.
“It’ll be OK.” Skye gave her arm a brief squeeze.
It wouldn’t be. The fact that Skye even felt the need to say that proved it.
Jules snorted and rang the doorbell.
~ ~ ~
“You what?” Francesca’s voice was low, a fake-calm composure that promised pain. The vein pulsing in her temple and her rigid stance spoke volumes.
“They came out of nowhere.” Skye paced. “I don’t get it. They must’ve trailed us for hours.”
“I gave them the Madonna,” Lucia whispered, her voice as flat as she felt.
“You couldn’t have just driven off?”
“They had guns pointed at us,” Skye ground out. “There was no other way. We’d be dead and they’d still have the painting.”
“I knew it,” Francesca muttered, turning to face the window. Hands on hips. Stiff with fury.
“Knew what?” Skye barked. “That someone would hit us tonight? A heads-up would have been nice!”
Francesca spun around. “Who knew about this run? Aside from the four of us and Blackwell? Who else?”
“No one,” Lucia said.
Jules and Skye both shook their heads.
“Well, someone did. Not Blackwell—she gains nothing. And I don’t see her hiring parking lot thugs with guns.”
Lucia exhaled, relieved she didn’t have to defend Penelope.
No one said anything.
Lucia frowned. “There was a man near the Bellini. Slate-gray tux. Didn’t drink, didn’t talk. Just…watched.”
Francesca’s eyes narrowed. “Security?”
“I thought so. He nodded when I saw him. But now I think he was watching me specifically.”
“Someone planted to track your movement,” Francesca said, looking resigned.
Lucia nodded slowly. “Maybe more than one. Radioing updates. So they knew exactly when to move in.”
“The ones inside must’ve signaled the team trailing us,” Jules said. “They were already in position before we even left the museum.”
“Yeah. We never had a chance,” Lucia said, her body still taut. The thought of how close they’d come twisted in her gut—if she’d noticed sooner, maybe things would’ve been different.
Francesca’s gaze cut between them. “Fine. Let’s move this to the study. We’ll go over everything, and you’ll tell me every step, every snag, every minor detail. Don’t decide for me what’s relevant.”
They trailed her into the room and sank around the heavy oak table. Francesca folded her hands, her presence making even the silence heavy.
Jules spoke first, breaking down the run step-by-step—check-ins, badge scans, routine exchanges with staff. Nothing alarming, nothing that explained the ambush. Francesca didn’t interrupt, didn’t even blink, just let the account spool out.
Then Jules added, almost offhand: “My laptop froze right after the timing update. Wouldn’t respond. Then it bricked, corrupt bootloader.”
Francesca’s mouth thinned. “And you didn’t check it before?”
“Of course I did. It was clean. I used it to tap into the museum’s systems. Everything worked. But when I went to pull a last-minute update—bam. Gone.”
“So what did you do?”
“Switched to Skye’s spare. No time to fix mine.”
“I doubt this was the start,” Francesca said.
“They somehow knew we’d make a move at the ball.
Varnelli wouldn’t have waited until the last second to intercept us.
” Her expression turned to stone. “No, the spike wasn’t the problem.
The trap must’ve been triggered earlier—when you ran the test.” Francesca’s tone hardened.
“Varnelli had something buried in the Meridian’s network from the start, probably hidden in the Conservation system’s update logs.
The moment you simulated that first humidity fluctuation, your laptop touched the compromised files.
That’s when a code must have activated and started feeding her data. ”
“So the payload didn’t trigger during the real spike,” Jules said slowly, realization dawning, “but during the test. That’s how she had time to organize the ambush.”
Francesca gave a sharp nod. “Exactly. She’d set the trap long before we ever made a move.
You just woke it up. Then it activated and uploaded everything: Lucia’s timing, the route, the extraction window—straight to Varnelli’s servers.
She didn’t have to react in real time. She’d already laid the trap. ”
“But…how the hell would she know we’d ever even hit the Meridian?” Skye asked.
“She knows me. It wasn’t a question of ‘if’ but ‘when.’” Francesca sighed. “She prepared for the possibility, probably the moment she handed over the Madonna. An insider, a planted file, a fake update, it doesn’t matter.”
Skye winced. “So it wasn’t my laptop? Because a month ago, I clicked a video—looked like a fundraiser for a local rescue center. Puppies needing adoption. It looked real. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Could’ve been a sleeper exploit,” Jules said. “Nothing malicious at the time. Just lying in wait. Or it was nothing. It definitely didn’t cause this.”
“Good, good,” Skye said. “Not that any of this is good.” Her gaze darted between Francesca and Jules.
“No,” Francesca said, voice clipped. “But next time, assume you’re a target, too.”
Skye shifted in her seat. “Yeah.”
For a moment, no one breathed, and they all lingered in stillness. Then Francesca said, cold and steady: “I know where Varnelli’s main warehouse is.”
“How will that help?” Jules asked.
“We’ll steal my Madonna right back,” Francesca said, sounding almost bored.
Silence settled like dust.
Skye drew back slightly. Jules looked away. Lucia just stared at Francesca, struggling to breathe around the tight band in her chest.
Breaking into the Meridian was one thing—it was precision, not war. But Varnelli? That was an empire built on ruthlessness. If they’d been willing to draw guns just to get the painting, what would they do to protect it now?
And yet Francesca looked like she’d already made peace with the risk. Her jaw set, eyes dark with conviction.
There would be no stopping her.
Breaking into Varnelli’s warehouse was a recipe for disaster, but how could she say no? They’d lost the painting, and after all Francesca had done for her, she owed her. She needed to help her regain the Madonna.
But at what cost, and was she really willing to pay it?