Chapter 8 - The Viper's Nest
"Who were you talking to?" Elias asked. His voice was soft, smooth, completely devoid of the panic that was currently suffocating me.
"Just a late-night tip from an old informant," I lied, slamming the laptop shut. My mind was racing. Elias is going to help them do it. Was Calvin just trying to get inside my head, or was the man I had trusted with my life playing a long game? Elias had been the one to introduce me to the initial contacts that launched my firm. He had curated my security. He knew every password, every backdoor, every weakness I had.
"You're shaking," Elias noted, stepping into the moonlight pouring through the loft windows. He reached out to touch my shoulder.
I flinched, pulling back just an inch, but it was enough. Elias’s eyes darkened, tracking the micro-expression of terror on my face. "What did you find?" he demanded, the warmth in his tone replaced by tactical precision.
"I found out that Victoria Sterling isn't a scorned wife," I said carefully, watching his hands. "She's an operative for Obsidian Vanguard. And the drive she gave me today infected my servers."
Elias didn't look surprised. He didn't gasp or ask what Obsidian Vanguard was. Instead, he let out a slow, measured breath and checked his watch. "We have twenty minutes before they breach the firm's physical servers to wipe the evidence. Get dressed. We're going to the office."
"Why didn't you look surprised, Elias?" I asked, refusing to move. "When I said Obsidian Vanguard."
He stopped at the bedroom door, turning back to look at me. His face was a mask of stone. "Because I used to work for them. Before I met you. Now put your shoes on, or we're both dead before sunrise."
The drive to the financial district was a blur of neon lights and agonizing silence. The man I loved was a former asset for a murderous financial syndicate. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to open the car door and vanish into the Chicago night, but I needed my servers. My entire life’s work, and the evidence to clear my name, was locked in that office.
We pulled into the underground parking garage of my building. The security booth was empty. The barrier was smashed.
"Stay behind me," Elias ordered, drawing his customized Glock 19.
We moved through the service elevator, ascending to the 40th floor in suffocating silence. When the doors pinged open, the scent of ozone and burnt plastic hit my nose. The glass doors of my firm had been blown off their hinges.
We crept through the darkened hallway, the only light coming from the glowing server room at the end of the hall. Three men in tactical gear were physically ripping the hard drives from the server racks. Standing behind them, holding a sleek silver tablet, was Victoria Sterling, looking perfectly coiffed in a designer trench coat.
"I told you she’d come," Victoria said smoothly, not even looking up from her tablet. She tapped a final command on the screen. "Hello, Elias. It's been a long time. Are you ready to finish the job?"
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Elias raised his gun, aiming it directly at the center of Victoria’s chest. But before he could pull the trigger, the cold, hard barrel of a suppressed pistol pressed firmly against the back of my own head.
"Drop it, Elias," a familiar voice sneered from the shadows behind me. I froze, my heart stopping entirely. It was Victor. The hitman who was supposed to be serving life in a Miami federal prison.
