CHAPTER 9 #2
Callum doesn't respond. He takes a drink of his water, his eyes tracking the lines of code scrolling across my monitor.
I force myself to eat half of the ration before pushing it aside. I drink the entire bottle of water in one go, the cold liquid helping to clear the thick, dusty feeling in my throat.
I plug the encrypted drive back into the port.
"Okay," I say, cracking my knuckles. "Let’s see if we can beat the clock."
I run the predictive script.
The screen flashes. The progress bar appears.
Ten percent. Thirty percent. Sixty.
I hold my breath. My fingers hover over the keyboard, ready to manually abort the sequence if the error code flashes again.
Eighty percent. Ninety-nine.
Access Granted.
A massive directory tree populates the screen. Folders upon folders of data.
"I’m in," I breathe, a massive wave of relief washing over me. I lean back in the chair, a genuine smile breaking across my face. "I broke the primary lock. The cascading algorithm is dead."
Callum stands up from his chair and walks over to the desk. He stands behind me, leaning over my shoulder to look at the screen. The proximity is immediate. I can feel the heat radiating from his chest against my back.
"Find the communication logs," he says, his voice low, right next to my ear.
I try to ignore the sudden spike in my heart rate. I click through the directory tree.
Financials. Offshore Routing. Personnel.
"Here," I say, clicking on a folder labeled Internal_Comms_Archive .
The folder opens, displaying hundreds of encrypted text files and audio logs. I run a quick search query, filtering the files by the date of the hack at Marcus Thorne’s server room.
Three files populate the screen.
I click on the first one. It’s an audio file.
I hit play.
The sound of Marcus Thorne’s voice fills the basement, distorted slightly by the recording software.
"The drive is gone," Marcus says, his voice high and tight with panic. "She walked right out the front door with it."
"Who?" a second voice asks. The voice is deep, heavily accented, and terrifyingly calm. It’s the same voice I heard over the radio last night. The leader of the mercenary team.
"A hacker. Gemma Hayes," Marcus stammers. "But she didn't act alone. She couldn't have bypassed the physical security without inside knowledge."
"Who gave her the knowledge, Marcus?"
There is a long pause on the recording. I can hear Marcus breathing heavily.
"Reed," Marcus finally says. "Callum Reed. He’s been auditing my security for six months. He knew the blind spots. He hired the girl to steal the ledger so he could hold the syndicate hostage."
"Are you certain?" the deep voice asks.
"Yes!" Marcus lies, the desperation dripping from every syllable. "He’s a mercenary. He has no loyalty. You need to put a burn order on him immediately. Kill them both before they decrypt the ledger."
The recording clicks off.
I stare at the screen, the absolute silence of the basement pressing in on us.
Marcus didn't just frame Callum. He handed the syndicate a perfectly packaged narrative. A rogue hitman and a dirty hacker, teaming up to extort the most dangerous criminals on the East Coast.
"Well," I say, my voice sounding incredibly small. "That is a very convincing lie."
Callum doesn't say anything. He is staring at the monitor, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle is jumping beneath his skin.
"We have the proof," I say, looking up at him. "We have the audio of him lying to cover his own incompetence. We can send this to the syndicate. We can clear the bounty."
"No," Callum says, his voice a harsh, flat rasp.
I blink. "What do you mean, no? This is exactly what we were looking for."
"Sending this audio file proves Marcus lied," Callum says, stepping back from the desk. He turns and paces toward the center of the room, his hands resting on his hips. "It proves he lost the drive, and it proves he framed me."
"Exactly!"
"But it also proves that you have the drive, Gemma." He stops pacing and looks at me, his eyes dark and volatile. "If I send this to the syndicate, they will execute Marcus for lying. But they will not cancel the bounty on you. You still hold the ledger. You are still a liability to them."
The realization hits me like a physical blow.
He’s right. The audio clears him of treason, but it confirms my guilt. If he sends the file, the syndicate will stop hunting him for betrayal, but they will never stop hunting me for the data.
I look down at my hands. My fingers are trembling again.
"So," I whisper, staring at the keyboard. "You can walk away."
The silence in the room is absolute.
I don't look up. I can't. If I look at him, I will see the cold, calculating professional weighing the variables. I will see the man who kills for money deciding that the easiest way to solve his problem is to take the audio file, leave the house, and let the mercenaries have me.
It is the logical choice. It is the tactical choice.
"I can," Callum says softly.
I bite my lip, fighting the sudden, humiliating burn of tears behind my eyes. I knew this was coming. I knew he was a monster. I knew the moment the parameters changed, he would cut his losses.
I reach for the mouse, preparing to copy the audio file onto a flash drive for him.
But before my hand can touch the plastic, Callum crosses the room.
He doesn't stop at the edge of the desk. He reaches down, grabs the arms of my mesh chair, and violently spins me around to face him.
I gasp, my hands flying up to grip his wrists.
He leans down, bringing his face inches from mine. His eyes are completely black, stripped of all professional detachment. The raw, violent intensity in his stare pins me to the chair.
"I can walk away," he repeats, his voice a low, lethal growl that vibrates in the air between us. "But I am not going to."
I stare at him, my breath catching in my throat. "Callum—"
"I told you last night," he interrupts, his grip tightening on the arms of the chair. "I have you. I do not make promises I do not intend to keep. I am not sending that file, and I am not leaving you in this house."
"If you don't send it, they will keep hunting you," I argue, my voice shaking. "They will kill you."
"Let them try," he says, the absolute arrogance in his tone sending a shiver down my spine.
He lets go of the chair, straightening up. The sudden loss of his proximity leaves me gasping for air.
"Copy the entire ledger onto the encrypted drive," he orders, his voice returning to its cold, tactical baseline. "Wipe the primary server. We are leaving."
"Leaving?" I scramble to turn the chair back to the monitors. "You said the car was compromised. You said we couldn't hike out."
"We aren't hiking," Callum says, walking toward the stairs. "We are going to steal their transport."
I freeze, my hands hovering over the keyboard. I look over my shoulder at him.
"You want to steal a car from the mercenary team currently surrounding the house?" I ask, entirely certain he has lost his mind.
"Yes," he says, pushing the broken steel door open. "Finish the transfer. I need to prepare the distraction."
He walks up the stairs, leaving me alone in the basement.
I stare at the empty doorway, my heart hammering a frantic, chaotic rhythm against my ribs.
He is throwing away his only chance at a clean exit. He is burning his own life to the ground, entirely by choice, just to keep me in it.
I turn back to the screen and start the data transfer.
My hands aren't shaking anymore.