CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Standing in the kitchen, Riley glared at her cell phone.
Leo had given her an impossible choice, and her emotions threatened to overwhelm her.
But she wasn’t feeling the panic he expected—not the helpless, frantic terror of a mother forced to choose between her child and her partner.
Instead, something darker and more primal surged through her veins.
Rage.
Pure, clarifying rage was burning away the fog of fear that had clouded her thinking since Jilly’s abduction.
In that moment she saw Leo with perfect clarity for the first time—not as an unstoppable mastermind, but as a man consumed by his own arrogance.
That might be his weakness—if only she could exploit it.
When Riley spoke again, her voice caught, deliberately fractured and hesitant now. She needed time. “Leo, please, I can’t just—”
“What’s that? The great Agent Paige at a loss for words?” His tone was light, almost playful. The sound of it made her skin crawl. “I would have thought your FBI training prepared you for impossible choices.”
“Give me a few minutes,” she said, letting a tremor creep into her voice. Not entirely feigned—her body was vibrating with adrenaline. “Please. I need time to think.”
A moment’s silence stretched between them. She could almost see him enjoying her distress, relishing his position of power.
“Well,” Leo finally replied, “I am nothing if not reasonable. Fifteen minutes, Riley. I’ll call back in exactly fifteen minutes.”
The condescension in his voice was clear, a masterclass in mock generosity. As if he were bestowing a great gift upon her, rather than torturing her.
“And if I don’t decide?”
Leo’s chuckle was soft, intimate. “Then as I just told you — both of them die. The choice is yours, Agent Paige. But if you don’t make a choice, then the decision is mine. And now the clock is ticking again.”
The line went dead.
Riley’s entire body trembled as she set the phone down on the kitchen counter.
But it wasn’t fear making her shake—it was rage so potent it threatened to overwhelm her.
This man, this pathological narcissist, believed he had the right to play God with the lives of the people she loved most in this world.
His arrogance was breathtaking. And in that moment, she knew that it could be his downfall.
Because arrogant people made mistakes. They believed themselves invulnerable, untouchable. They underestimated their opponents. They couldn’t conceive of being outsmarted.
Fifteen minutes. Nine hundred seconds to formulate a plan that would save both Jilly and Bill. She glanced at the kitchen wall clock, its second hand sweeping relentlessly forward. 1:37 a.m. Leo would call back at 1:52.
What did she know about Leo’s mental state? His patterns? His weaknesses?
He craved control. Needed it like oxygen. Every move he’d made, from hacking her home security system to orchestrating Susan Martinez’s death, had been calculated to strip Riley of any illusion of control over her own life.
And he needed an audience. Needed witnesses to his brilliance. What good was orchestrating the perfect game if no one appreciated the intricacy of its design?
Most of all, he needed to win—but not just win. He needed to defeat Riley specifically, to break her down, force her to acknowledge his superiority.
The phone rang, startling her from her thoughts. Riley grabbed it, heart lurching, but the name on the screen wasn’t Leo’s. It was Van Roff.
She answered immediately. “Van, what have you got?”
“Nothing good,” came his reply, his usually irreverent tone subdued. “ShadowCipher keeps shutting me down. Every time I establish contact, he cuts the connection within seconds. It started as soon as I mentioned L. Dillard.”
Riley’s mind raced. With less than fourteen minutes left before Leo’s callback, she couldn’t afford to waste time.
“Listen to me,” she said, her words rushing together. “Leo just called. He has Bill.”
“What? How—”
“I don’t have time to explain,” Riley cut him off. “But he’s forcing me to choose between saving Jilly or saving Bill. He’s giving me fifteen minutes to decide—well, thirteen now.”
Van’s sharp intake of breath was audible through the phone. “Jesus Christ. That’s... Riley, I’m so sorry.”
“I need your help, Van. Now.” She paced the kitchen, her free hand raking through her hair. “Why do you think ShadowCipher keeps cutting you off?”
“It’s obvious,” Van replied, his tone shifting to something more analytical, professional. “He knows I’m FBI. He’s protecting his client.”
“You said before that he shut down immediately when you mentioned Leo’s name—L. Dillard, right?”
“Yeah,” Van confirmed. “I barely got the name out before the connection terminated. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either if I were in his position. These dark web hackers are paranoid by nature, and the best ones stay that way.”
But something didn’t add up in Riley’s mind.
A hacker as sophisticated as ShadowCipher would have vetted his clients thoroughly before agreeing to work with them.
He would have known exactly who Leo was before accepting the job.
So why would the mere mention of Leo’s name trigger such an immediate shutdown?
“What if it’s not about protecting his client?” Riley said, the pieces falling into place. “What if it’s something else entirely?”
“Like what?”
“You mentioned ego before—how these elite hackers have egos the size of Montana. What if ShadowCipher and Leo had a falling out? What if Leo’s arrogance offended him?”
Van was silent for a moment, considering. “It’s... possible. These hacker types don’t play well with others, especially ones who think they’re smarter than everyone else.”
“Which describes both Leo and ShadowCipher,” Riley said. “Two enormous egos on a collision course.”
“But that doesn’t help us,” Van pointed out. “If ShadowCipher won’t even let me mention Leo’s name without cutting me off, how does that give us leverage?”
Riley glanced at the clock again. 1:40. Twelve minutes left.
“I need you to connect me with ShadowCipher,” she said.
“What? Riley, did you not hear me? He won’t talk—”
“Not you. Me.” Riley’s voice hardened with determination. “Set up a direct connection from my computer to wherever you were communicating with him.”
“He’ll just hang up on you too,” Van warned. “These guys don’t exactly respect authority figures.”
“I have to take that risk. I need access to that forum or chat room or whatever it is you were using.”
Van sighed heavily. “I’ll need remote access to your computer. You okay with that?”
“Do it,” Riley said, rushing out of the kitchen to the computer in the family room. “Now.”
“Alright, sending you a link. Click it, and I’ll be in.” A moment later, her computer pinged with a text message containing a URL.
Riley clicked it, and watched her cursor begin moving independently across the screen as Van took control. Windows opened and closed rapidly, lines of code scrolled past too fast to read. She watched, mesmerized, as Van navigated digital terrain as easily as she might walk through her own home.
“Alright,” he said after about a minute. “I’m connecting you to the same secure messaging channel where I last had contact with him. Remember, these messages are encrypted, but nothing online is ever permanently private. Be careful what you say.”
The screen settled on a dark interface with a simple message box. The aesthetic was retro, harking back to early internet chat rooms. The username at the top read “VoltageVariant”—Van’s dark web alias.
“I’m logged in as you?” Riley asked.
“Yep. From his perspective, you’re still me. ShadowCipher will assume he’s talking to VoltageVariant unless you tell him otherwise. And his alias is QuantumGhost Ready?”
Riley took a deep breath, her eyes darting to the kitchen clock. 1:42. Ten minutes.
“Ready.”
“Good luck,” Van said. “I’ll stay on the phone, but I’m muting myself so I don’t distract you.”
Riley hovered over the keyboard. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t result in immediate disconnection? The truth, perhaps. Or at least, a version of it.
She typed: We need to talk.
The response from QuantumGhost came almost immediately: You again? Persistent, aren’t you?
Riley took a deep breath. This was the moment. Either ShadowCipher would engage, or he would disappear back into the digital ether, taking with him perhaps their only chance to save Bill and Jilly.
No, she typed. This is Special Agent Riley Paige.