Chapter 16 #2
He tapped the Hammer against his palm and my suit flickered again. Systems came online just long enough to scream critical warnings before dying completely.
“I can bring down all your systems, all your defenses,” he continued. He stepped closer and the shadows moved with him. “And then I can crush you. Not just your body, though that would be simple enough. Everything you’ve built. Your reputation. Your standing. Your future.”
I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until the red light in his eyes went out.
But I wasn’t stupid. A fight here would be messy and I might not walk away from it intact. I had to swallow my pride and let the shadow-skulking prick think he’d won.
“Point taken,” I said. “No need for threats, I speak the language of leverage fluently.”
“If you say so,” Dread said. His voice carried an unsettling musicality that made my skin crawl.
He extended his hand, the small data chip balanced between two fingers. It felt unnaturally cold against my palm, as though it had absorbed Dread’s essence.
“Keep me updated on your progress.” He backed away and the shadows reached for him like eager pets. “I’ll be in touch.”
He melted into the darkness.
The moment he vanished, my suit switched back on. The familiar glow of my HUD illuminated the empty warehouse.
Well, fuck.
I stared at the small chip in my palm. Whatever information it contained, it was valuable enough for Dread to offer the Tinkerer’s Hammer in exchange. That alone made it dangerous.
I walked out of the warehouse, my mind already dissecting the encounter from every angle.
What’s the best play here?
The Syndicate didn’t need to know about Dread. Not yet. Information was currency, and I wasn’t in the habit of spending it before I understood its full value. I needed to see what was on that chip first. Needed to understand what Dread was after before I made any decisions that couldn’t be unmade.
As for Annie, keeping her ignorant was the easiest decision of the night. Handing over the rogue meant terminating our partnership and I refused to surrender my best excuse to stay tangled in her life. I would lie to her face every single day as long as it kept her within my orbit.
She could keep hunting a phantom. I only cared that she belonged to me while she did it.
“Welcome back, sir,” Twenty-Three greeted me through the comms as I strode into the Labyrinth.
“Status report,” I demanded.
“All systems nominal. No incidents to report. The data you requested on the Alliance’s security procedures has been compiled.”
“Give me an update on Bishop,” I said.
“Ms. Bishop went to her residence,” Twenty-Three replied. “However, she remained inside for less than ten minutes before going to the Tower.”
“And the secondary request?” I asked.
“Compiled and ready for your review, sir.”
A slow, cold smile stretched across my face.
I had laid out the terms clearly. I told Annie that the pathetic, unremarkable fucker, Finley Adkins, could keep his hands provided he actually managed to get her off.
He had failed. He didn’t even get her wet.
But incompetence wasn’t a capital offense. Making her cry was. I was going to make sure his final moments were spent understanding exactly whose property he had mishandled.
But the kill would have to wait.
I grunted an acknowledgment to Twenty-three instead.
“I’ll be in my lab,” I announced. “No interruptions. Not for anything short of the building collapsing.”
The doors of my lab sealed shut behind me, locking out the rest of the world. I decided Dread’s little encrypted chip could wait another sixty seconds.
I typed out a quick message to Annie.
You really shouldn’t have run
Three seconds later, the indicator beneath the text shifted to Read.
She was in the safety of the Tower, clutching her phone like a lifeline. I could picture it perfectly, the way her pulse was currently hammering against that delicate throat.
Let her spend every agonizing hour between now and our next meeting squirming. The anticipation of her reckoning would tear her apart long before I finally got my hands back on her.
I sighed and dropped my mask on the workbench.
The data chip felt impossibly heavy for such a tiny thing. I placed it on the analysis station and initiated a preliminary scan.
“Let’s see what’s worth a legendary artifact,” I muttered and began building a custom decryption program.
Minutes turned into hours. I built complex decryption routines only to watch them fail against the chip’s defenses.
Each failure stoked the fire in my mind to keep going.
I finally established a foothold in the outer layer of security.
It was a small victory, but I programmed a more sophisticated approach and set it running.
Estimated completion time: 37 hours.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered.
I leaned back in the chair. More than a day just to get past the first layer and there was at least one more layer that I could detect. The chip sat there, silent and defiant, something I couldn’t control.
My mind drifted to the other variable currently outside my control.
Annie. As much as I wanted to go retrieve her, I couldn’t drag her out of the Tower without causing an inter-organizational incident.
Besides, I needed her to stew in her own panic a little longer.
Let her marinate in the realization that she belonged to me.
But that left me with a surplus of adrenaline. If I couldn’t have my Keeper, I needed to break something else.
My gaze shifted to the third monitor where a dossier waited for me. Finley Adkins.
I had given the pathetic, unremarkable bastard a fair equation to solve. Touch her. Make her wet. Make her forget about me. He had failed spectacularly on all counts.
He took my brilliant, beautiful Annie, a woman drowning in her own dark desires, and smothered her with his mundane expectations until she broke down. He had tainted her with his mediocrity.
He had made her cry.
“Twenty-Three,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Bring me Adkins’ current coordinates. And ready a disposal team.”
It was simple math. Finley Adkins had lived exactly four hours and twelve minutes longer than he deserved. I was going to correct the error.