“Seven a.m. tomorrow morning.” Nissa smiled over her shoulder. “Don’t be late.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Spark
Early the next morning, Evie was sitting on her laptop at the island in her kitchen, sipping a cup of green tea and trying to force down a breakfast wrap.
The rest of the previous afternoon had been spent touring the other four floors of Sloane Consulting. Floor eighty-one housed the servers, classified containment, and data vault, which Tommy explained could only be accessed by Thorn, Nissa, and them and was shared between Sloane Security Services and Sloane Consulting.
Eighty-three was home to the Field Integration and Development Lab, staffed by a small team of six.
Marisol Vega, the Senior Integration Engineer and Team Lead, oversaw all prototype builds and testing, serving as Evie and Tommy’s primary point of contact with the team.
Rylan Keane, the Hardware Integration Specialist, handled all physical builds, translating digital blueprints into working components. He worked closely with Arjun Patel, the Mechanical Engineer, who designed and produced the housings and structural materials for the prototypes, ensuring they could withstand rough handling, heat, or electronic interference.
Rylan and Arjun also collaborated with Inez Duarte, the Materials Specialist, who developed advanced composites and experimental materials for them to use.
Saskia Moreau, the Embedded Systems Developer, wrote and integrated the low-level code that powered each device, handling firmware updates and diagnostic interfaces for testing.She worked closely with Owen Calder, the Field Test and Validation Specialist, who conducted both simulations and live-environment trials before the prototypes were sent to consultants in the field. Owen’s job was to ensure each unit met safety standards and to perform failure analysis when needed.
After that, the tour of the remaining two floors was quick and straightforward. The eighty-fourth floor, Tactical Training and Simulation, housed a gym, sauna, and an eight-by-fifteen-foot modular swim training pool, similar to the one Evie liked to use in Tommy’s private gym on the eighty-seventh floor. There was also a sparring ring and a set of training mats, and to her surprise, the entire back half of the floor had been converted into a live fire gun range.
“You wouldn’t believe the hoops I had to jump through to get this built,” Tommy explained as they stood behind the bulletproof glass beside the entrance, watching Paula and Aaron practice shooting. “So many permits and safety standards, which is understandable. Guns and bullets are not to be taken lightly.”
The last floor, the eighty-fifth, had been converted into ten large rooms arranged around the exterior walls, each with a queen bed, dresser, wardrobe, desk, and television. In the center of the floor was a rec room and kitchen area, with a men’s bathroom and shower on the rec room side and a women’s bathroom and shower on the kitchen side.
“Cole and Lana moved here from Kentucky, and Aaron and Paula moved here from D.C., so they stayed here until they found homes,” Tommy explained cheerfully as he showed Evie around. “Their rooms are available whenever they need them, for any reason.”
A knock on her door pulled her out of her thoughts, and she got up to answer it, knowing it was probably Thorn. It wasonly six; Tommy rarely got out of bed before seven, and Nissa wasn’t one to drop by without texting or calling first.
Sure enough, when she opened the door, Thorn was smiling at her, a mug of coffee in one hand and a gift bag in the other.
“Good morning.” He held up the bag. “I brought you a present for your first day of combat training.”
Evie let out a quiet laugh as she took the bag from him. “It’s just self-defence lessons, and they aren’t my first ones, but thank you.” She stepped back to let him in. “Want a breakfast wrap?”
“I figured you would have breakfast ready.” He admitted shamelessly as he followed her to the kitchen. “And they are your first lessons that will stick, trust me.” He sat on his reinforced stool at the island, watching as she put together his wrap.
“I’m not sure why you think these will stick any more than any of the others did.” Evie sighed, her stomach twisting again at the thought of having to do more training in how to drive someone’s nasal bones into their brain.
“Because after Tommy asked Nissa and Cole to train you yesterday and mentioned your background in ballet, they came to me, and between the three of us, we came up with a plan that uses a mixture of all three of our fighting styles, with more emphasis on Nissa’s.” He smiled at her reassuringly. “Trust me, Mališa. In eight to ten weeks, I guarantee you will be able to hold your own until you can either get away or someone arrives to help you.”
Evie frowned as she sat on her stool beside him. “Why? It’s not like I’ll be going on ops with you guys.”
“Because it has been almost four years since your father was arrested and two and a half since the trial, and you stilloccasionally get death threats,” Thorn answered nonchalantly before taking a massive bite of his wrap. “Not to mention that Tommy still gets letters saying you are plotting to kill him and take over the company.”
“Seriously?” Evie blinked. “I thought all that had stopped.” She looked down at her half-eaten wrap, frowning. She had been left pretty much alone by the other students in her final year of university. People still avoided her, but she assumed it was because Project HELIX was receiving so much attention from the faculty. Their recommendations had secured her internships with Sloane Tech, which allowed her to advance far faster than anyone else.
“We know some of them were coming from a group of university students who were jealous that you got the Sloane internships. Nissa was able to trace those back, and Tommy dealt with it from there.” He shrugged. “But the others…” He ran a hand through his hair, and Evie could see he was trying to hide how concerned he was. “Tracing typed letters through the United States postal system with no return address only brings us to the post office that processed them. It is not always the same one, and there is no pattern we can find.”
“Right.” Evie blew out a breath and pushed the remains of her wrap toward Thorn as he finished his, her appetite gone. She was not overly concerned about the threats, mostly because she rarely went anywhere without Nissa, Tommy, or Thorn, and she felt that if someone were actually going to do something, they would have done it by now.
What bothered her more was that the issue persisted after all this time. It felt like the people still involved were using her as a scapegoat. “Maybe you should be more concerned about Tommy than me. Sounds like he has several people who are alittle obsessed with him.” She slid off her stool, walked over to the counter where she had put the gift bag, and peeked inside.
“That is another angle we have considered.” Thorn nodded as he picked up her wrap to finish it. “But the fact remains that even if they are obsessed with Tommy, they see you as a threat to him, and they may do something to remove the threat.”
“Mmm.” She hummed as she pushed aside the tissue paper, trying to see what Thorn had brought her. “Or maybe they are neckbeard losers sitting in their mother’s basement who only leave the house to waddle to the convenience store on the corner.”
Her face brightened when she spotted a Spark Fitness Watch on top of fuchsia pink and black fabric. Part of Sloane Tech’s new fitness-meets-technology line, the watch had sold out within hours of its release. “How did you manage to snag one of these?”
She pulled out the box excitedly and opened it, immediately beginning the process of syncing it to her phone.
