Lucas stood in William's study looking at what the room had become. War room. Command center. Every surface covered with equipment. Laptops. Radios. Tactical gear. Maps of the warehouse district spread across the desk.William's security team had arrived an hour ago. Six men who moved like soldiers even in civilian clothes. Ex-military. Professional. The kind of people you hired when you needed problems solved quietly.Marcus Chen stood at the head of the table. Tall. Graying hair. Scars on his hands that told stories he probably wouldn't share. Former Navy SEAL according to Robert. Now ran private security for people who could afford the best.He looked at Lucas. "You the principal?""Yes.""Marcus Chen. Heard you need extraction capability from a hostile location.""That's right."Marcus pulled out a tablet. Started pulling up building schematics Byte had provided. "Walk me through it. What are we looking at?"Lucas explained. The warehouse. The Syndicate. Maya. Phantom's call. The

The van smelled like gun oil and coffee.Lucas sat in the back between two of Marcus's team. Miller on his left. Rodriguez on his right. Both ex-Marines according to their patches. Both watching him with the particular stillness of people who'd learned to wait.Marcus drove. Sarah rode shotgun with a tablet showing live satellite feed of the warehouse district. The other three team members were in a second van two blocks behind them."ETA twelve minutes," Sarah said without looking up from her screen. "No change in thermal signatures. Still showing forty-five bodies."Lucas checked the wire clipped to his collar. The tracker in his shoe. The panic button disguised as his phone. Everything Marcus had given him working perfectly.In theory.Miller leaned over. "First time?""First time what?""Going into a hot zone knowing you might not come out."Lucas thought about that. "No. But usually I'm behind a computer. Not walking through the front door.""Front door's easier. You know what yo

The explosion was louder than anything Lucas had ever heard.Doors blowing inward. Wood and metal fragmenting. The percussion hitting him in the chest like a physical wall.Then smoke. Thick. Choking. Filling the warehouse in seconds.Lucas dropped flat. Covered his head. Felt debris rain down around him.Gunfire. Automatic. Deafening. The particular sound of trained people shooting to kill.Shouting. FBI agents. Syndicate guards. Everyone yelling at once. Nobody hearing anything over the chaos.Lucas crawled. Away from the door. Away from the shooting. His ribs screaming. His ears ringing. The smoke burning his lungs.A hand grabbed his shoulder. Yanked him sideways.Cipher."Move!" he shouted. "They're killing everyone!"Lucas let himself be pulled. Followed Cipher through the smoke. Away from the gunfire. Toward the back of the warehouse.Behind them, the sound of people dying. Screams. Commands. The wet thump of bodies hitting concrete.Cipher dragged him through a door. Slammed i

Nine AM came fast.Lucas and Naomi walked into FBI headquarters together. Through security. Up elevators. Down corridors that all looked the same.Agent Chen met them outside a conference room. "Good. You're here. Byte's already inside. You need to see what he found."She opened the door.The conference room had been converted into a makeshift tech lab. Screens everywhere. Cables running across tables. Equipment that looked like it had been assembled in a hurry.Byte sat in the center of it all. Multiple laptops open. Fingers flying. He looked up when they entered."You signed the contract," he said. Not a question."Yeah.""Good. Because this is bad." Byte gestured to the screens. "Really bad."Chen closed the door. "Show them."Byte pulled up data. Files. Organizational charts. Names and faces filling every screen."During the raid, one of Chen's techs found a server in a third floor room. Partially destroyed. Phantom tried to wipe it remotely but didn't get everything." Byte zoomed