Chapter 23 Alexi
ALEXI
The beacon signal in her sneaker died forty-three seconds after we lost visual contact. Once they realized we were tailing, they used a jammer.
I stare at my laptop screen, watching the GPS coordinates freeze mid-route. Last known position: a warehouse district near Logan Airport. Private terminals. Government contracts.
Black sites.
“Fuck.” I slam my fist into the dashboard, causing pain to radiate up my arm. Better than the numbness threatening to swallow me whole.
Dmitri drives us back toward Beacon Hill, jaw tight. Erik works three phones simultaneously in the backseat, calling contacts at State, Defense, and anyone who might owe us information.
Nikolai sits beside me in silence.
The dangerous kind.
“Say it.” I don’t look at him. Can’t. “Say you told me so. Say I should’ve kept her locked in my apartment until we neutralized the threat.”
“Would she have stayed?”
Valid question.
Iris Mitchell doesn’t do cages well. Even gilded ones.
“I should’ve made her.” I’m typing at my keyboard, rebuilding the tracking algorithm. “I should’ve disabled her car and hid her shoes. Anything to keep her from walking out that door.”
“You gave her a choice.” Nikolai’s voice stays even. “She made it.”
The choice to protect Maya.
The choice that got her captured.
My screen flickers—new data stream establishing connection. I’ve got backdoor access to every traffic camera within five miles of the last beacon ping. Facial recognition software is already running.
“There.” I freeze the feed. Black SUV, government plates, tinted windows. “Second vehicle. Same convoy formation we spotted earlier.”
Dmitri leans over. “Can you track it?”
“Already am.”
The algorithm follows the SUV through traffic camera networks, piecing together its route. South through Seaport. East toward the harbor. Then—
Signal loss.
Dead zone.
“They’re jamming.” I switch to satellite feeds, thermal imaging, anything that might penetrate the blackout. “Deliberate blind spot in the surveillance network.”
“How big?” Erik asks.
I run the calculations. “Four square blocks. Industrial sector near the old Navy Yard. Perfect for a black site—close enough to Logan for quick extraction, isolated enough that nobody asks questions.”
Nikolai straightens. “Can you confirm she’s there?”
“Give me ten minutes.”
My fingers blur across the keys. I need building schematics, utility records, and anything showing recent power usage spikes. Black sites run on generators, but they still pull municipal water. Leave heat signatures.
Leave traces.
I find her in eighteen minutes.
Not through satellite feeds or thermal imaging, but through the water bill.
One building in the dead zone quadrupled its consumption three weeks ago. Same timeline as Morrison’s payments from Sentinel Operations increased.
“Got it.” I angle the laptop toward Nikolai. “Warehouse complex on Marginal Street. Officially condemned. Unofficially pulling enough water for twenty people minimum.”
“Could be squatters,” Dmitri points out.
“With government-grade signal jammers?” I pull up the electromagnetic interference map. “This is military tech. Same signature as NSA field operations.”
Erik leans between the seats. “What’s the security profile?”
I switch to a screen showing the building layout I pulled from municipal archives. “Two entry points. Reinforced loading dock on the east side, personnel entrance on the north. Both likely monitored.”
“Guards?”
“Minimum four. Probably six.” I zoom in on the thermal overlay—faint heat signatures clustered on the second floor. “They’re keeping her upstairs. Northwest corner room based on the power draw patterns.”
Nikolai studies the data. “You’re certain?”
“Ninety-seven percent.”
His jaw tightens. “Not good enough.”
“It’s her.” My voice comes out sharper than intended. “Morrison took her three hours ago. They need time to set up interrogation protocols, establish baseline responses before they start the real work.”
The real work.
Knives. Chemicals. Whatever tools Morrison prefers when he wants information.
My stomach lurches.
“We go in tonight,” I say. “Full tactical. Erik leads entry, Dmitri handles extraction logistics. I’ll kill their security systems before we breach.”
“No.” Nikolai’s tone leaves no room for argument. “We gather intelligence first and confirm the target location. We also need to identify all hostiles and plan the operation properly.”
“We don’t have time—”
“We don’t have room for mistakes.” He turns to face me fully. “If you’re wrong about the location, we expose ourselves for nothing. If Morrison realizes we’re coming, he moves her somewhere we can’t find.”
Every instinct screams at me to move now. Break down doors. Tear apart anyone standing between me and Iris.
But Nikolai’s right.
Going in blind gets us all killed.
Gets Iris killed.
“How long?” My hands shake against the keyboard. “How long do we wait?”
“Six hours. We’ll have full reconnaissance by then.”
Six hours.
Three hundred sixty minutes while Morrison has her.
I force myself to nod.
Six hours.
I can work for six hours.
Back at the penthouse, I convert my living room into a command center. Laptops cover every surface. Monitors line the walls. Erik’s already coordinating with his former Spetsnaz contacts—men who know how to breach secure facilities without triggering alarms.
Dmitri works the political angle, calling in favors from city officials who might look the other way during a “training exercise” near the harbor.
Nikolai handles the big picture. Contingencies. Escape routes. What happens if Morrison moves Iris before we strike?
I handle everything else.
Building schematics download onto my center screen. I study the warehouse structure, memorizing every corridor, every room, every possible choke point. The northwest corner office has reinforced walls. Soundproofing.
Interrogation room.
My jaw clenches hard enough to ache.
“Coffee.” Dmitri sets a mug beside my keyboard.
I don’t drink it.
Can’t stop working long enough to lift the cup.
“When did you last sleep?” he asks.
“Irrelevant.”
“Alexi—”
“I said irrelevant.” My fingers fly across the keys, pulling utility records for the past month. Power consumption spiked exactly when Morrison’s payments increased. “They’ve been planning this. Preparing the site. Probably since Iris first breached Nightshade.”
“Then they’ve had weeks to fortify.” Dmitri leans against my desk. “Which means we need you sharp, not running on fumes and rage.”
Rage.
Interesting choice of words.
Rage implies loss of control. Emotional compromise.
This isn’t rage.
This is determination.
Morrison took something that belongs to me. Hurt someone under my protection. Crossed a line that doesn’t get uncrossed.
I’ll dismantle him for it.
Systematically. Efficiently.
Starting with his security systems.
“I’m fine.” I pull up the electromagnetic jamming frequencies. “Better than fine. I know exactly how Morrison thinks now. His patterns. His protocols.”
“Because you’ve been inside his head for three hours straight.”
“Four.” I correct him without looking up. “And I’ll stay there until I find every weakness in his operation.”
My phone vibrates.
Unknown number.
I answer immediately. “Yes?”
Static. Then—
“Alexi Ivanov?”
Morrison’s voice.
Cold. Professional.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
“I’m listening.”
My voice stays level. Controlled.
Erik’s head snaps up. Dmitri moves closer. Nikolai appears in the doorway.
“You’ve been looking for something.” Morrison’s tone carries no inflection. Pure bureaucratic detachment. “A rather talented young woman. Goes by the name Phantom.”
My hands curl into fists. “Where is she?”
“Safe. For now.” A pause. “We should talk, Mr. Ivanov. About mutual interests.”
“I don’t negotiate with dead men.”
“Colorful.” Papers rustle in the background. “But impractical. You see, Ms. Mitchell possesses information crucial to national security. Information she acquired through illegal means.”
“You mean the files proving you murdered her parents?”
Silence stretches across the line.
Good.
Let the bastard know I’ve already connected the dots.
“I see she’s been sharing stories.” Morrison’s voice tightens. “Unfortunate. Makes this situation more complicated than necessary.”
“Complicated.” I switch my phone to speaker and start to trace the call. “That’s what you call assassination?”
“I call it damage control.” The papers stop rustling. “Her parents were assets who outlived their usefulness. Loose ends. You understand loose ends, don’t you, Mr. Ivanov?”
The trace completes—burner phone, routing through proxy servers. Smart.
Not smart enough.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Twenty million dollars. Unmarked, untraceable cryptocurrency. And I need Ms. Mitchell’s silence guaranteed in writing.”
“Or?”
“Or I deliver pieces of her to your doorstep.” He says it like discussing shipping options. “Starting with her talented fingers. She won’t need them where she’s going.”
White noise fills my head.
Morrison continues. “You have twelve hours to decide. I’ll send transfer instructions—”
“Six million now.” The words come out steady despite the violence screaming through my veins. “Fourteen million when she walks out alive.” As clearly, Morrison is in too deep and considering running with our money—he won’t get far.
“You’re negotiating?”
“I’m buying time to find you.” I meet Nikolai’s eyes across the room. “And when I do, those fingers you mentioned? I’ll feed your own to you.”
Morrison laughs.
“I look forward to it, Mr. Ivanov. Truly. Twelve hours.”
He disconnects.
I’m already moving, pulling up the trace data, following digital breadcrumbs through proxy servers and VPN tunnels.
“Did you get it?” Erik asks.
My fingers blur across the keyboard.
“He made a mistake.”
The call bounced through seven proxies, but the final node—
There.
Marginal Street.
Northwest quadrant.
Exactly where I predicted.