Her hand disappears briefly from view.
Saint inhales. “There.”
“Not yet.”
She steps forward, looking over her shoulders once. Another pace, and another pause. Then, another followed by the slightest shift in posture. A micro turn of the shoulder. Her arm lifts, and the movement is shielded by her body, the angle, and the city’s own blind spots.
I isolate the frame. Enhance, then stabilize. A rusted junction box, half-swallowed by brick and neglect, flickers into clarity at the edge of the screen.
Her fingers brush it. Not linger. Not fumble.Brush—like she’s done this before.
The drive never appears. There is no obvious placement. No clumsy concealment. Just a woman moving and a box existing and then she is gone, swallowed by rain and pedestrians and noise.
Saint exhales slowly. “You think she hid it there.”
“I think she planned to,” I say.
He tilts his head. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” I agree. “It’sworse.”
Because planning implies foresight. And foresight implies experience.
I pull up infrastructure records. The box is not in any current maintenance database. It is not flagged. It is not monitored. It is forgotten.
A dead node—the best kind.
“She didn’t improvise,” I murmur. “She selected a hiding spot knowing what she was doing before going into danger.”
Saint’s mouth curves faintly. “And you don’t like that.”
“I don’t like variables or loose ends we can’t control.”
He pushes off the wall. “So we check it.”
“Yes.”
“Now?” He asks.
“Yes.”
We move without ceremony. No announcement. No briefing. No permission. The house is quiet in that predatory way that means everyone is somewhere else breaking something. I grab my jacket, my gloves, my helmet. Saint does the same, fluid and unbothered.
The garage opens like a mouth, and the Ducatis wait. Black. Lethal. Beautiful in a way only expensive violence ever is.
Saint mounts his with a reverent touch. I swing onto mine, the engine coming alive beneath me, a purr that sinks into mybones. The bikes do not roar. They growl. Controlled. Contained. Dangerous.
We peel into the night, rain slashing sideways, the city opening before us like a challenge. London blurs into light and shadow and wet asphalt, the streets gleaming like oil-slick bone.
Saint rides like a confession — smooth, precise, inevitable. I ride like a problem.
The alley is exactly as it was on the feed. Narrow. Forgettable. Old enough that the city has stopped caring.
We dismount in unison, boots crunching against gravel and slapping against wet ground. The rain has a way of making everything smell like metal and secrets. The junction box waits. Rust streaked, and paint blistered. A relic in its own right.
Saint watches the street while I crouch, fingers testing the edges, the hinge, the screws. The metal complains softly as I open it.
Inside is darkness, dust, and a small, black drive tucked into the back seam like a secret the city never meant to keep.
