Chapter 22
twenty-two
“I told you something didn’t feel right.”
Leon inclines his head to me respectfully as I exit the lobby, a large smile on his face despite the circumstances. Returning his smile, I embrace the young Italian before taking a step back and checking the feed that is displayed on the monitors in the security corridor.
He is right. Something is off.
“You cleared the building?”
Leon nods. “The minute the breach was flagged, we called a code black,” he confirms. “We’re the only ones here besides the men guarding the vault.”
“Good.” I take a deep, calming breath as Leon leads us to the stairs that descend into the parking garage.
The entrance to the vault sits on the other side of the parking garage, concealed beneath one of the many grates that dot the underground structure.
Whoever breached our security system last night is careless.
They wanted to be seen.
But why?
My gut twists, telling me that nothing is adding up.
The obvious play would be to go for the money we secured from the cargo container.
But we already shuffled most of that cash through our businesses.
It isn’t in the vault any longer. There is a possibility that whoever breached our system doesn’t know that, but I don’t believe that is the case.
There is something we haven’t seen yet.
A missing piece of the puzzle we haven’t found.
Protocol during a breach means clearing the entire building. We don’t know what the hacker managed to mess with. Security. Employee IDs. Mark is still working on finding any corrupt data. He’s coming up short.
It would be difficult to sneak a physical person past me or my men, but most of us have been absent since my supposed death. I can’t discount the distinct possibility that this isn’t the first security breach.
“Find anything?” I ask Mark over the comm line.
“No,” Mark huffs angrily. I hear the sounds of his fingers pounding against his keyboard. “Nothing. They didn’t touch any of the systems. It’s like they showed up, waited, and left.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Andrei mutters. I have to agree with my father. Why bother infiltrating one of the most secure buildings in the city if you aren’t there to obtain information? Is it to clear the building? No one outside of the organization knows our protocols.
Unless we have a mole.
Rage simmers in my chest at the mere thought of one of my soldiers betraying me.
“Help me here,” Vas mutters to Leon when we reach the far end of the parking garage. The pair grab hold of the wrought-iron grate, and with a short grunt, they lift. We descend the stairs one at a time before making our way down the singular hallway that ends at the vault door.
I let my gaze wander the area, searching for discrepancies once we reach the door. Nothing is out of place. The two guards posted outside are the same pair that have been assigned the post for the last year. Their eyes widen in shock when they see me.
“Pakhan,” they whisper in awe-tinged voices.
“Marius.” I nod at the first guard before turning my gaze to the second. “George. How are you?”
“G-good,” Marius stutters slightly. “We’re good. It’s damn good to see you alive, sir.”
“Thank you,” I tell him sincerely. “Anything to report?” The two men straighten up and shake their heads.
“No, sir,” George reports. “No sign of movement. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“That’s good to hear.” My head turns toward Leon. “Let’s get this over with.”
Leon nods and steps toward the vault. It is lined with concrete and steel thick enough to keep out most radioactivity and withstand a nuclear bomb.
The vault is more like a bunker. The door is made of carbon steel and completely independent from the rest of the building.
From the Wi-Fi to the life support system.
Completely impenetrable.
A keypad sits on either side of the door, along with a retina scanner. The only ones with access are the men in my upper circle. And Ava. But I don’t think anyone has told her that yet.
Each person is assigned their own code. For security reasons, a new code is generated at the start of every week to help prevent breaches. One code needs to be used in conjunction with another code, or the door won’t open, and the retinal scans have to be done at the same time.
Stepping up to my keypad, I give Leon the signal to start entering his code. The system beeps, accepting the individual entries before the retinal scanner dings. We lean forward, our right eyes focused on the scanner.
“Wait—” Mark shouts over the comm line. It is too late. The scanner already imprints our retinas. The building rumbles beneath our feet, concrete shifting as an explosion rings out above our heads.
“Your retinal scan triggered the building’s self-destruct mechanism,” Mark cries. “Every one of the devices has been activated. You have less than sixty seconds to get the hell out of there.”
“Motherfucker,” I curse. The door to the vault is already open. It is our only chance. “Everyone inside of the vault. Now.”
The sound of falling rubble is deafening. “Mark, tell Kristian to get Ava away from the building or they’ll be caught in the collapse.”
Static.
“Mark.”
Shit.
“Mark!”
“Son,” my father urges from the doorway. “Your wife is strong. She will be fine. Get inside before you go down with the ship.”
Cursing, I stride quickly through the door, helping my father pull it closed. The electronic click of the lock is music to my ears.
“We should be safe in here,” Vas assures everyone.
“Should be?” Andrei frowns.
“Well,” Vas smirks grimly, “we haven’t exactly tested it out before.”
Andrei chuckles.
Then the last few bombs detonate.
Hindsight is a bitch. In the early days of construction, we implanted explosive devices into the major fault lines of the building so that if worse came to worse, the building could be reduced to a pile of ash and rubble. Along with any evidence.
Not that I was careless.
No one outside my organization knows about those devices. There are only a handful of men who are aware of them. One of them has to be the mole.
Fuck.
The vault rumbles and shakes as steel and concrete rain down on top of us. For the first time in years, I pray. I pray that the vault holds under the weight of the upper building’s collapse, and I pray that my wife manages to get free of the collapse zone.
I am not a religious man, but in that moment, as the lights flicker and stall, leaving us in an embankment of darkness, I pray to whoever will listen.