48. Lilith #2
He shook his head. “No digital footprint. No patterns. Nothing.”
Something uneas y curled in my chest. “Until?”
He tipped his chin toward Finn. “Bring up the GMS screen.”
Finn’s fingers flew over the keyboard, pulling up a new screen of endless columns and numbers.
I narrowed my eyes at it. “What’s that?”
“It’s a ghost-monitoring system,” Silas said.
“Right. That clears it up. Thanks.”
Finn snorted quietly but kept typing.
Silas kept going. “We built a passive surveillance net. It monitors public WiFi networks.”
I blinked. “Uh-huh.”
“Think of it like a spiderweb,” he said. “People with phones? They’re the flies. Every time someone’s device auto-connects to public WiFi, it pings. Leaves a tiny little footprint.”
That made a little more sense. “And Clark… he left a footprint?”
Finn clicked a few keys. More data scrolled across the screen.
Silas nodded, arms crossing. “We’ve been running this system for just over a week. Waiting for a match. And when…” he hesitated. “Yesterday, when I left you at the penthouse. Clark had made a mistake. He pinged at a motel. About seventy-five miles out of the city.”
My stomach twisted. “A motel?” That wasn’t like Clark at all.
“We went to find him,” Silas said. “By the time we got there,” he grimaced. “He was gone.”
Finn let out a sharp breath, shaking his head. “Yeah, and not to be obvious, but your ex? Disgusting. There was trash everywhere. Empty takeout containers on the floor. The whole place reeked of rot and smoke.”
My stomach turned.
He kept going, like he was listing off evidence at a crime scene. “Grime all over the room. Like, actual dirt. Cigarette butts on the nightstand. An empty phone box, no phone.”
I blinked, letting my gaze drift around Finn’s office.
He caught my look and immediately pointed at me. “No. I’m messy and clean . That place was just plain dirty.”
Silas stepped in, clearing his throat. “We traced him to a gas station, but the clerk didn’t remember him. We think he has someone on the inside. Helping him move. Hiding him. Maybe leading us on the wrong path.”
I shook my head. “No.”
They both exchanged a glance and spoke in unison. “What?”
I gestured at t he screen, at the mess they were trying to make sense of. “Clark isn’t that smart.”
Finn tilted his head. “Okay, then how the hell is he pulling this off?”
I let out a breath, leaning back in the chair. “He’s not. He’s spiralling. And he’s lucky.”
Finn arched a brow. “Lucky?”
I nodded. “Lucky that no one’s found him yet. Lucky that no one cares enough about what he’s done to report his whereabouts.”
Silas stayed quiet, watching me carefully.
“His phone showing up? That wasn’t strategy. That was a mistake,” I added.
Finn leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “And you know he’s spiralling because…?”
“Because I know him. He doesn’t do cheap. He doesn’t do motel rooms.”
Finn tilted his head. “Alright, but maybe he’s desperate. Maybe he’s lowering his standards.”
I let out a humourless laugh. “No. He’s not capable of lowering them. This isn’t a man who adapts. He crumbles.”
Silas exhaled loudly, a muscle twitching in his jaw. His fingers tapped once against the desk before curling into a fist.
I kept going. “Clark doesn’t eat takeout. He doesn’t leave messes anywhere—hell, he once screamed at me for leaving a glass in the sink for too long.”
Finn let out a low whistle. “Jesus.”
“He had rules. Everything had to be pristine. No clutter. No dirt. Even his closet looked like a damn store display. He checked the mirror constantly. Fixed his hair if it wasn’t just right. Do you really think someone like that suddenly decided to live like an absolute slob?”
Silas’ breathing was heavier now, his fingers flexing at his sides.
I pushed forward. “He wouldn’t have touched a cigarette, let alone let a room stink like smoke. He would’ve gagged at the thought. The fact that he let it get that bad? It just doesn’t—”
Another sharp breath caught my attention.
“Silas.”
He didn’t look at me.
“Silas, stop.”
His gaze snapped to mine, frustration written into every sharp line of his face. “You shouldn’t know all of this.”
I stilled, my breath catching for a second. “You think I enjoy that I know this much about him? You think I enjoy having to pull up shit I’d rather erase?”
His eyes flickered with something, but I didn’t let him look away.
“I hate that I know him. I hate that I understand how he thinks. But right now?” I took a breath. “Knowing him helps us.”
His shoulders stayed right, his fists clenched, but his breathing slowed slightly.
Finn cleared his throat. “Okay. So. If he’s not working with some criminal mastermind covering his tracks, and he’s not actually thinking ahead, then what?”
I exhaled, turning back to the screen, letting my own frustration settle. “Then he’s not running on strategy. He’s running on fear.”
Finn grinned, stretching his arms behind his head. “Which now makes our job a hell of a lot easier.”
My brow furrowed. “How? If he’s untraceable?”
They exchanged a glance before Silas said, “AIFG.”
“That’s not words.”
“Artificial Intelligence Facial Gateway,” Finn clarified, spinning slightly in his chair. “It’s a facial recognition company. One of the best.”
I folded my arms. “And?”
Silas sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “And we’ve been working on getting access.”
Finn leaned forward. “It’s unethical as fuck, but we’re calling in an old… college friend. He works in the backend of their systems. He’s a little… flexible with the rules.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Flexible?”
“Dodgy as hell,” Finn corrected himself.
“This is the same guy who hacked into the university servers in our senior year because a professor gave him a bad grade. Wiped the whole faculty login, deleted years of research, and redirected every university pay-check to an animal shelter in rural Montana. Don’t know why we didn’t think of him sooner. ”
I blinked. “… What?”
“Yeah,” Finn nodded. “They had to cancel half the payroll that month. They never caught him. He ghosted about seven years ago, but popped up two years later working cybersecurity for a Fortune 500 company. And now?” He gestured vaguely.
“He’s working for AIFG, but on the side, he sells backdoor access to people like us who need… let’s say, unofficial favours.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So you’re telling me this guy went from cyberterrorising his college, to running high-level security, and now he’s just committing corporate espionage for fun?”
“Pretty much,” Finn grinned. “And if we slip him enough cash, he’ll let us piggyback off AIFG’s network and track Clark in real time.”
“How much does he want?” Silas asked.
“Well, he started at seven figures, but I talked him down.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Seven figures?”
Finn nodded. “Yep.”
I let out a sho rt, stunned laugh. “As in, a million?”
“Yep.”
Silas exhaled sharply. “Finn.”
Finn held up his hands. “Relax. I got him to settle at four-fifty.”
“Four-fifty what?” I choked out.
“Thousand.”
Was I hearing that right? “You talked him down to nearly half a million dollars?”
Finn grinned. “Yeah. Pretty good, right?”
“That is not talking him down! That is still half a million dollars!”
He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine. We’ve spent more on dumb shit we didn’t need.”
I turned to Silas, waiting for him to shut this down, to agree with me that this was too much, that this didn’t need to happen—but he was already pulling out his phone. “Fine. Set up the meeting and transfer it into the Meridian account.”
“Already ahead of you, boss.” Finn said, cracking his knuckles.
Silas shot him a look. “You better not be. I want this locked down before the money moves.”
Finn held up three fingers. “Scout’s honour.”
“No way,” the words ripped out of me. “This is insane. You can’t just throw that much money away on something like this.”
Silas paused mid-text, lifting his gaze to mine. “It’s not throwing it away.”
“Silas—”
“It’s an investment. One that guarantees Clark doesn’t slip through the cracks.
That he doesn’t just fade away into the background and get to keep—” he exhaled sharply, shaking his head.
“He doesn’t get to disappear while you have to live with what he did.
You could have died. And he ran. Like your blood didn’t stain his hands. ”
My fingers drifted up to where a scar now lay on my temple.
Finn shifted in his chair. “Damn, man.”
Silas’ gaze locked onto mine. “I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care if it’s unethical, illegal, or messy. Clark Thorn doesn’t get to exist anymore. If the system won’t find him, I fucking will.”