“I’m doing my best.”
“So, you got something for me?” Silas asked, one eyebrow ticking up.
I met his eyes. “The bank’s got new protocols. Some kind of anomaly sensor. They flagged the first two transfers as internal errors, but now they’re watching the servers every night. I’m having to write new code every time. It’s slow, but it’s working. Iron Valor has to be feeling it by now.”
He laced his fingers, and the tattoo on his right hand—a wolf’s eye, inked into the webbing between thumb and forefinger—seemed to stare straight through me.
“How slow?”
I swallowed, then lied: “I can try to move ten grand tonight. I cannot guarantee that it will go through. I can try for more if I risk exposure, but—”
“You’re not here to tell me about risk, little girl. You’re here to solve problems. I understood you were the person who coulddothis.” His jaw tightened.
“Ican,” I said, and hated how fast the words came. “But with new protocols, security is adapting more quickly than in the past. If I push harder, they’ll see me.”
He grunted, a sound that might have been a laugh if you were generous. He took a pen from the desk, spun it around his knuckles like a magician, then pointed it at me.
“I’ve got men to handle exposure,” he said. “What I need is someone who doesn’t cry wolf the second shit gets real.”
I kept my face still. “I’m not crying anything. I’m telling you what’s happening.”
He stood. It wasn’t a big movement, but it put him over me, a wall of flesh and ink and hard-earned rage. “You’re telling me you can’t do it?”
“No, I’m telling you, if you want this done to get the maximum amount of money from those accounts, you have to give me more time.”
He leaned in, hands on either side of the desk, eyes inches from mine. His beard was so thick it caught the light like velvet, every hair a threat. “You want more time, you better make it count.Because if this thing tanks, Axel’s not the only one who’s going to pay for it.”
I stared at him. His breath smelled of coffee and cinnamon. His hands were so big that his fingers seemed to cover half the desk’s width. His fingernails were painted black.
My heart hammered in my chest, but my voice held steady. “It won’t tank. I just need a few more days.”
He was so close I could see the pockmarks of old acne scars on his scalp. He smiled, but it wasn’t sincere. “That’s more like it.”
Then, just as suddenly, he backed off, dropping into his chair. The metal shrieked under his weight.
I fished in my hoodie pocket for the note I’d written out, the new protocol for the next phase of the job. I slid it across the desk, watching as he flicked it open and scanned it. He grunted again, less annoyed this time. “In case you were curious, that’s the new protocol I’m running.”
He flipped the note back at me, then said: “What about Skeeter? You hear from him?”
I shook my head, honestly this time. “Not in a while.He went dark after that last run.”
Silas’s face didn’t change, but the air in the room did. He tapped the pen on the desk, the click loud as a pistol shot.
“Find him,” he said. “He’s not smart enough to run, but if Iron Valor finally made him, I need to know.”
“I’ll do what I can to track him,” I said, because saying no wasn’t an option.
He studied me for a long second, then did something I wasn’t ready for. He smiled. His teeth were so white they looked almost fake.
“You’re good at your job,” he said, his voice softening. “But I need you to remember who you work for.”
He slid his hand across the desk and let it rest on my forearm. The grip was gentle, but the heat of it radiated up to my shoulder. He dragged his index finger up my sleeve, all the way to my bicep, then back down.
“I don’t want to lose you, little girl,” he said. “You’re too valuable.”
The way he said it, I couldn’t tell if it was a threat or something worse.
He let go and sat back. The silence stretched, and the only sound was the fluorescent ballast humming overhead.
