The SUV’s air-conditioning hummed steadily, fighting against heat that shimmered off the asphalt.The leather seats warmed despite the climate control.A faint scent rose from them, a mix of the faint smell of Marcus’s cold coffee from earlier, and the lingering perfume of plumeria that seemed everywhere, even when no flowers were present.
Her children were safe.Sophie repeated it like a mantra, matching the rhythm to her deliberately steady breathing.
Armita would have taken them to the safe room the moment the alarm triggered.The vault beneath the house could withstand anything short of a direct military assault.Bill and his team were the best private security money could buy—all former military, all personally vetted, all understanding that their job was to protect not just clients but family.
The house itself had become a fortress over the years, especially after Connor had lived with them.His improvements to the AI monitoring system had taken her original designs and elevated them to something that approached prescience.Cameras that could read microexpressions, sensors that detected chemical signatures, algorithms that learned and adapted to patterns of behavior.The system had made Security Solutions a world leader in defensive home protection technology, their waiting list stretching two years out for residential installations.
“The response time was impressive,” Marcus said, breaking into her thoughts as he swerved around a tourist rental car going twenty miles under the speed limit.“Your team knows their stuff.”
“Yes,” Sophie said.“When you have children, thirty seconds can be a lifetime.”
“Don’t I know it.”Marcus and Marcella were parents too.
The breach scenario summoned unwanted memories—another time, another threat, her mother’s elegant face twisted with determination as she’d tried to take the children for her own twisted purposes.Pim Wat, master spy and assassin, was a grandmother who’d never held her grandchildren with love, only calculation.
The CIA black site where she now resided was designed for people like her—those whose skills made normal incarceration inadequate and whose networks ran too deep for conventional justice.
Sophie checked her phone reflexively, scrolling through secure contacts.No alerts from her CIA liaison.No warnings from the State Department connections she maintained.Her mother remained contained, at least physically.But Pim Wat had taught her daughter well—physical walls were just one kind of prison.Influence could seep through the smallest cracks.
“You’re thinking about your mother,” Marcus observed.
“Always, when someone threatens my home.”Sophie tucked the phone away.“But this doesn’t seem like her style.Too elaborate, too indirect.Mother would just—” She stopped, unwilling to voice the brutal efficiency Pim Wat was known to employ.
They passed through Kailua town proper, its surf shops and shave ice stands catering to the beach crowd.The salt breeze carried through the SUV’s ventilation system now, bringing with it the promise of the ocean just beyond the residential streets.This was the Hawaii tourists dreamed of—laid-back vibes, local fruit stands on corners, kids riding bikes with surfboards tucked under their arms.
“I keep coming back to the question of why,” Sophie said, watching a family walking, all three licking rainbow-colored shave ice.Such normal life, such easy joy.“I don’t have artifacts at home.My art collection is decorative, nothing that would interest a thief targeting Hawaiian cultural items.So why ...”A thought crystallized as she spoke it.“What if the artifact thefts were just to get my attention?What if I’m the real target?”
Marcus glanced at her sharply, his knuckles tightening on the steering wheel.“You think someone’s using million-dollar heists as a calling card?That’s an expensive way to send a message.”
Sophie touched the scar on her cheekbone, a ridge of tissue that caught the light filtering through the windshield.
“And how would they know you’d get involved with the thefts?”Marcus navigated around a delivery truck, his movements automatic even as his mind worked the problem.“I was the one who recommended Security Solutions to the Bishop Museum.Unless ...”
“Unless they knew our connection.Knew you’d call me.”Sophie’s mind raced.“The artifacts themselves might be secondary.Valuable, yes, but not easily monetized.Most are too recognizable for the black market, too culturally significant to move without attracting attention.”
“Likely they’re symbolic of something we haven’t figured out yet.”Marcus flexed his hands, the leather covering the wheel creaking slightly.“I hate puzzles like this.Give me a straightforward homicide any day.”He glanced at her with rueful brown eyes that held depths of concern.“Wish I could be more help.”
They turned into her neighborhood, the change immediate and palpable.Here, maturekukuiand monkeypod trees created canopies over the street, their shadows dappling the asphalt in constantly shifting patterns.The houses sat further back from the road, hidden behind walls and tropical landscaping that provided privacy and beauty in equal measure.This was old Kailua, wherekama?ainafamilies had lived for generations, where the sound of the ocean was a backbeat beneath the birdsong.
Sophie’s house stood behind its distinctive wall—black lava rock quarried from the Big Island a century ago, now softened with patches of grey-green lichen that looked like ancient script in the afternoon light.The wall stood eight feet high, topped with modern additions that were invisible but effective—pressure and movement sensors, infrared beams, electrified wire disguised as decorative metalwork.
Bill met them at the gate, his sturdy frame radiating controlled tension.The middle-aged former Army Ranger had led her security team for over two years, earning Sophie’s trust through countless quiet nights and several not so quiet days.He input the code at the featureless security plinth—biometric scanners reading his palm print, retinal pattern, and gait recognition simultaneously before the metal gate swung open on silent hinges.
Marcus pulled through, tires crunching on the driveway.The house revealed itself in stages—warm ochre walls that glowed like honey in the afternoon sun, reddish terra-cotta roof tiles imported from Italy decades ago, and deep cobalt ceramic ones lining the deep veranda.It was a house built for both beauty and defense, its sight lines clear, its approaches limited.
The dogs met them on the front steps—Ginger bouncing with yellow lab enthusiasm, Anubis maintaining Doberman dignity until Sophie’s hand touched his head.Then both dogs transferred their attention to Marcus, who’d made the mistake of keeping treats in his pockets on previous visits.
“Down, beasts,” Sophie commanded with fond exasperation, shooing them away from her friend.“Marcus isn’t here to play.”
“The children are inside with Armita,” Bill reported, falling into step beside her.His blue eyes carried the crinkled concern of a father himself, though his own kids were college aged.He pushed a hand through hair that had gone grizzled during his time with her team, the Hawaiian sun and job stress taking their toll.The black polo and khaki shorts of Security Solutions’ uniform looked almost military on him.“They’re playing in the secure room.We made it seem like a game—told them we were practicing camping underground.”
Sophie nodded, relief loosening something in her chest.“Good thinking.They love that space, heaven knows why.”She shook her head at the irony.“I can barely stand being down there for five minutes.”
The secure room was a relic from the Cold War, a bomb shelter built by the home’s original paranoid owner and updated with modern amenities.Reached only by a cramped elevator that triggered every claustrophobic tendency, it was simultaneously her greatest comfort and deepest dread.The space was stocked for a six-month siege—food, water, medical supplies, entertainment systems, air filtration that could handle everything from volcanic ash to biological weapons.
But for Sophie, small dark spaces would always carry echoes of her first marriage, and of locks that only opened from the outside.
“Breach attempt was at the southwest corner,” Bill continued, his voice shifting to mission-brief mode.“Professional approach—they’d done their homework.Picked the section with the most tree cover from the neighbors, furthest from the street.Used some kind of electromagnetic device to try to fool the sensors.”
