He pushes the door open and steps through, his movements precise, controlled. I follow closely behind. The scent of dust and something chemical fills my lungs. The interior is sparse—desks, scattered cables, a few computers left humming in standby mode. Light flickers from one monitor, a heartbeat of blue against the concrete.
“This is too clean,” Rowan mutters under his breath. “Someone scrubbed this place fast.”
“Not fast enough,” I whisper, scanning the walls, the floor, every inch of wiring running along the baseboards. It’s organized chaos—a setup meant for short-term use. Whoever’s been here didn’t live here. They worked. And now they’re running.
Emerson crouches near a pile of broken drives, turning one over in his gloved hand. “Trip alarms,” he says quietly, coming to the same conclusion. “They knew we were here.”
“Then we’re on borrowed time,” I murmur. My voice sounds steadier than I feel.
Ronan’s jaw flexes. “Move now. Split up. If they’re packing up, they’re not far.”
We move deeper into the building, through a narrow hallway that smells faintly of burned plastic. The hum of electronics fades behind us, replaced by the echo of hurried footsteps up ahead. I freeze, raising my hand to stop the others. The sound bounces off the walls—light, quick, panicked.
“Got movement,” I whisper. My pulse hammers.
We pick up the pace, careful but faster now. The hall widens into a back corridor lined with filing cabinets and crates. The door at the end stands slightly ajar, and the faint glow of a laptop screen spills through the crack.
Ronan gestures silently, and we fan out. Emerson moves to the left wall, Rowan to the right, both of them covering the angles. I step forward, my heart steadying in that strange way it always does when we’re seconds from collision. Every instinct is screaming that this person—this ghost we’ve been chasing—is the one who’s been burying their trails, hiding our enemies.
A muffled curse comes from behind the door, followed by the clatter of keys. They’re still working, carrying a laptop, still trying to delete us from their system.
I glance at Ronan, and he gives the faintest nod. We move together, silent and fast. He pushes the door open in one clean motion, gun raised, voice cutting through the air like a blade.
“Drop it.”
The figure goes rigid, breath catching as their hands lift slowly. The laptop slips from their grip and hits the floor with a dull crack, its fractured screen casting a weak, flickering glowacross the room. Light spills over their face, revealing a young man—early twenties, around our age. Sweat beads along his hairline, gluing dark strands to his forehead. His wide eyes dart between us, sharp with calculation but threaded through with unmistakable fear.
Rowan swings the door shut behind us with a quiet finality, the click of the latch sounding far too loud in the still room. Emerson moves to the window, blocking the only escape route, his frame filling the narrow space. The hacker’s throat bobs as he swallows, jerking like it’s caught in a trap. When he finally speaks, his voice cracks. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
I step forward, the light from the broken laptop catching on my boots as my shadow stretches across the floor. “No,” I say softly, each word deliberate. “You’re not supposed to be running.”
His eyes dart past me, flicking to the corners of the room, searching for help that isn’t there. His fingers twitch as if he’s still reaching for the keyboard, some part of him desperate to finish whatever he started.
Ronan shifts beside me, his gun steady but his tone low and sharp. “Is there anyone else here?”
He shakes his head too fast, the movement sharp and unconvincing. His eyes flick toward the hallway—just a heartbeat, but enough to spike my pulse. “No,” he says. “They left when you tripped the silent alarm. I was trying to finish scrubbing the remaining data before you came in.”
“Start talking,” Ronan growls, lowering his weapon just enough to make the demand sound more dangerous than a direct threat.
The hacker’s mouth opens, but no words come out. Only the sound of his shallow, panicked breaths fill the room, quick and uneven, matching the steady thrum of my heartbeat pounding in my ears. For a pulse, the room closes down to justhis too-bright eyes and the faint whine of the busted laptop. He sounds small when he speaks, like he’s surprised the words are leaving his mouth. “Who are you?” He asks, voice thin.
I let the question hang for a second, watching Emerson, Rowan, and Ronan’s shoulders tighten on either side of me. The stupid part of my brain wants to laugh. How does he not know who we are when he’s been scraping every trace of evidence clean for days? I push that reaction down and answer him plain, the way I hate to be answered when I’m the one under the spotlight. “What do you mean, who are we?” I say. “You’ve been wiping every trail we follow. How do you think we tracked you down?”
He swears, a sharp sound bouncing off the concrete, like he’s surprised by his own mistake. “Shit,” he says. “I knew I should have backtracked the last relay. I thought I’d closed it.”
Ronan takes a step forward. His boot scuffs the floor. “Start talking, motherfucker,” he hisses. His tone is a blade. “They took our sister, and you’re hiding her from us.”
The guy’s hands fly up as if to ward off the words. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he stammers. “I know nothing about that. I was paid to scrub data. That’s it. Two names and a list of files. Wipe these, make them disappear, make the accounts untraceable. Cash up front. Burner phone. Threats if I asked questions. That’s all.”
“Shut up. Sit.” My voice is quieter than Ronan’s, but it carries the same weight.
He collapses into the chair as if he expects the floor to drop out from under him. I holster my sidearm, sit, and cross my legs—choosing a posture that signals attention, not threat. My guys can handle that part. He’s small, jittery, and clearly not built for violence, which makes him both disposable and ideal for dirty work that survives on ignorance.
“Start at the beginning,” I say. “Tell me your name and then tell me what you were actually doing in this place.”
He swallows hard and says, “Micah Vale.” The way he says it suggests he wishes it were any other name. Micah is probably twenty, maybe twenty-two, the kind of guy who grew up on keyboards and pizza, not on threats and men with guns.
“Micah,” I repeat slowly, letting him hear his own name in my mouth. “Walk me through it.”