Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“You’re coming up on the east perimeter,” Bayo says in my ear, his voice a familiar comfort. The moth earring is cool against my lobe, a tiny weight that means I’m not alone out here. “Two guards on rotation. They’ll pass your position in approximately ninety seconds.”
“Copy.” I press myself flat against the chain-link fence and start counting. I’m wearing black tactical gear Kat had brought from SOE, my hair pulled back, two guns tucked at my back and in my boot (can’t kiss someone from afar).
I’ve done this a hundred times. This is what I do best—not being a journalist, which was always only as a cover, but being a spy.
So why can’t I stop thinking about Vanguard? The way his nostrils flared as his gaze raked over my bare shoulders, the barely imperceptible way his mouth opened as I asked if he bites. The—
“Seventy seconds,” Bayo says, snapping me out of it. “You still with me?”
Now I am.
“Always.” I watch the guards round the corner—two men in private security uniforms, hands on their belts, faces carrying bored expressions. They’re not expecting trouble. No one ever expects trouble at an auxiliary facility in Queens at two in the morning if there hasn’t been trouble before.
That’s what makes it so easy.
That’s why making trouble can be so much fun.
The moment they pass, I’m up and over the fence, dropping silently onto the cracked asphalt on the other side. The landing sends a jolt through my knees, but I’m already moving, keeping low, hugging the shadows along the building’s eastern wall.
“Service entrance is fifteen meters ahead,” Bayo says. “Keypad lock, four-digit code. I’m running possibilities now, but it might take a minute.”
“I don’t have a minute,” I grumble.
“Then improvise.”
I reach the door and study the keypad. Standard model, nothing fancy. The buttons are worn—some more than others. One, four, seven, and nine show the most use. I run the combinations in my head, factor in the likelihood of lazy security protocols, and punch in 1-9-7-4.
The lock clicks green.
“Show-off,” Bayo mutters.
“You were asking for it.” I ease the door open and slip inside, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. Everything is bathed in a dim red glow, thanks to emergency lighting, with corridors stretching left and right, filled with the faint hum of climate control and the distant beep of machinery.
“According to the building plans Kat pulled, the server room should be on sublevel two,” Bayo says. “Take the corridor on your left, then the service stairs at the end.”
I move quickly, footsteps silent on the concrete floor. The facility has the sterile, empty feel of a place that exists only on paper, with no personal touches or signs of daily use. Whatever Global Dynamix is doing here, they don’t want anyone to know about it.
Which means it’s exactly where I need to be.
The service stairs are narrow and poorly lit. I descend two flights, pausing at each landing to listen. Nothing. Either this place is deserted, or the night shift is skeleton crew. I’m betting on the latter.
“Sublevel two,” Bayo confirms as I reach the bottom. “Server room should be through the double doors at the end of the hall. But I’m picking up heat signatures. Two, maybe three bodies. Stationary. Could be techs, could be security.”
“Could be both,” I muse.
“Aye,” he agrees. “How do you want to play it, Miss Mia?”
I consider my options. Going loud would be faster, but it would also trigger alarms, and the last thing I need is Vanguard swooping in to investigate a break-in at one of his employer’s facilities. The irony would kill.
You’d have to explain why you were there. And he’d look at you with those baby blue eyes of his and know you’d been lying to him the whole time.
I shove the thought away.
“Quiet approach,” I say. “I’ll assess when I get there.”
The corridor is long and featureless, broken only by a series of numbered doors. I press myself against the wall as I near the double doors, risking a glance through the reinforced glass window.
Three people inside: two techs in lab coats, hunched over workstations, one security guard, armed, standing by the far wall with the glazed expression of someone who’s been on shift too long and the coffee’s wearing off.
The server racks line the back wall—rows of blinking lights and humming processors. That’s my target.
“I need a distraction,” I murmur.
“Way ahead of you. Fire suppression system is networked. Give me thirty seconds, and I can trigger a localized alarm in the east wing. Should pull at least the guard.”
“Do it.”
I count the seconds, watching through the glass. At twenty-eight, a distant alarm blares—shrill and insistent. The guard straightens, speaks into his radio, then heads for the door. I flatten myself against the wall as he passes, close enough to smell his aftershave.