But the stakes are rising. Every breadcrumb she follows pulls us closer to the edge of something much uglier than crooked business. I want it to be worth it, want this web we’re untangling to mean something, to point us toward the people who’ve been gutting our networks from the inside.
“She’s good for you,” Lev says, more softly now. “That part’s obvious.”
I don’t answer.
Because he’s right.
And I’m afraid that’s going to cost us both.
CHAPTER 30
ASTRID
Elena’s computer room is less of a room and more of a sanctum.
Situated beneath the east wing of the Ivanov mansion, it’s cold and sterile, humming with a low, constant buzz from a dozen machines working overtime. Server racks line one wall like soldiers, a sprawl of monitors along another with three curved screens forming a control center that would make the NSA jealous.
There’s a neon-accented poster ofGhost in the Shellon one wall, a faded EFF sticker peeling from a mini-fridge, and a trash can nearly overflowing with take-out containers.
She’s got EDM pulsing at low volume, the kind of music that either triggers a migraine or rewires your brain for focus. Apparently for Elena, it’s the latter.
“You see this?” I say, pointing to a line item on the spreadsheet I’ve pulled up on my laptop. The documents Yuri gave me from the warehouse raid have been scanned and uploaded onto mycomputer for perusal. “Seven figures routed through a shell corporation in Panama, disguised as a deferred equity swap.”
Elena swivels in her chair, sipping from a mug that saysWorld’s Okay-est Hacker.“What’s a deferred equity swap?”
“It’s when two parties agree to exchange future cash flows tied to equity performance without actually owning the stock. It’s finance speak for ‘hide the money long enough to forget where it came from.’”
She types something rapid-fire, muttering, “Okay, I’m brute-forcing the hashed login to the proxy node, and once I’m in, I can spoof the MAC address and backdoor us through the Cayman mirror.”
“Right,” I say. “Cool. English, please.”
“I’m breaking in to the fund’s shadow ledger. Legally speaking, we’re in a gray area. Morally speaking? Well, that’s a whole other matter.”
I smile. We work in tandem, like people who’ve done this for years. Her hands fly across the keyboard while I scan spreadsheets, and it occurs to me, again, that Elena could run the entire Ivanov IT department single-handedly if she wanted to. Probably already does.
She pushes back from her keyboard with a stretch and wanders toward the little kitchenette tucked in the corner, refilling her mug.
“So,” she says casually, “has Grigori been too much?”
I look up. “Too much?”
“You know. Looming. Brooding. Intimidating like it’s his love language.”
I laugh. “No. Honestly, he’s more of a gentle giant.”
Elena chuckles, leaning against the counter. “Don’t let him catch you saying that. He likes to be thought of as terrifying. But yeah, he’s a true softie, especially with Sergei. Always has been. You should see him at bedtime. His voice goes all hushed as he reads the same picture book five times in a row without complaining, doing all the silly voices.”
There’s tenderness and love in her tone, and I think about my twins.I almost tell her. I want to. But it’s not time yet.
Besides, we’ve got too much to do.
“Alright,” I say, swallowing the thought, turning back to my screen. “Let’s see what Legacy Holdings is hiding behind all that red tape.”
Elena grins and slides back into her chair, fingers already dancing. “Time to crack some skulls. Digitally, of course.”
The hours slip by. We dive deeper into the data Yuri pulled from the Legacy Holdings archive, combing through quarterly reports, dormant accounts, and wire transfers that shouldn’t exist.
The goal is simple in theory—find the earliest point of overlap between Agent Spalding and Christian De la Rosa. In practice, it’s like chasing smoke through a hall of mirrors.
