Keep digging into my code if you like, but ghosts don’t live in servers… and I don’t plan on being found.
Chapter Two
FINN
My phone chirps as I prepare to sneak out of the control panel room.
Jinx.
I read the message without any reaction. It’s no surprise she found me trying to break into her code. She’s been a familiar but elusive figure for too long.
At first, I found her gossiping, taunting, and leaking of secrets amusing. But more and more, her expose’s turned personal. Private. Deep.
Jinx knows things she shouldn’t.
Has access to places she shouldn’t.
It’s because of her that we confirmed Cadence and Grey’s kidnapping. It’s a little too convenient. The timing, a little too suspicious. Dutch and Zane went through the mall footage with a fine-toothed comb and couldn’t find the video Jinx sent.
Something is very off about that anonymous poster.
Finding her was my obsession in the past, but it’s quickly becoming my family’s lifeline.
I’ll deal with Jinx later.
I slip out of the room and hike to the second floor. A long hallway unfolds in front of me. This part is where things get tricky. I disabled the cameras on the north side of the building as soon as I was close enough to log into the wi-fi, but it’s possible there was a separate backup battery installed. Or maybe Kurosaki had a tail watching me the moment I walked into the building.
Plausible.
Kurosaki is the definition of paranoid. He’d have to be, as the head of an underground crime organization.
Hastily, I boot the cameras back up and swipe through the monitors on my phone. The app allows me to see every hallway in the warehouse, and I keep searching until I spot three burly men waiting outside a room in the west wing.
Those are Kurosaki’s trusted guards.
He must be in there.
I slip my phone into my pocket and walk boldly. Head high. Shoulders straight. Arms loose. It would be smarter to remain covert, but I don’t have time for that.
Footsteps get louder in the distance, and a moment later, unfamiliar guards turn the bend. They see me, their eyes narrowing slightly and then widening with recognition. At once, the members stop and bow, and they don’t straighten until I’m already past them.
It’s still weird. Still makes me itchy.
I’m not who they think I am.
I don’t want tobewho they think I am.
But it’s not like I’m going to explain why I don’t want to take over the yakuza from a father I’ve never known. For now, their unearned respect works in my favor.
I near the hallway where Kurosaki’s security is stationed. His soldiers are dressed in tailored black suits, which would lookbusinesslike if not for the tattoos running up their necks and over their arms.
The men hold themselves perfectly still. The boss isn’t watching, but not once do they break formation or talk or even slouch. It’s a discipline I’ve never seen before.
Pulling back before they spot me, I open my phone and tap. Immediately, the men receive notifications on their phones. One gestures to the other and says something in Japanese.
Two of the three break off to investigate what is—I’m sure—a message that the south region of the warehouse has been broken into.
They won’t find any intruders pilfering their “goods,” of course.
