No groundskeeper belonged in the control room.
No groundskeeper was part of the storm team. All others had been evacuated.
Zach stood, already running a threat assessment. The control room housed primary systems—power distribution, generator control panels, emergency protocols. Storm prep had most systems in standby mode, skeleton crew on duty.
Minimal witnesses. Maximum opportunity.
He checked his knife—the fixed blade against his spine—and moved.
The resort corridors were quiet. The storm crew was now hunkered down in the staff building and everyone else had left the island. Storm shutters covered windows. Emergency lighting cast everything in harsh shadows and amber pools.
Zach’s boots made no sound on the polished floor.
He’d walked these halls a hundred times doing security sweeps, mapping every corner, every blind spot, every tactical advantage. Now that knowledge compressed into pure efficiency. He moved fast and silent, cutting through service passages that bypassed main corridors.
His mind worked through scenarios. Best case: the man was an idiot. Simply where he shouldn’t be, opportunity to question and verify. Worst case: active sabotage during a hurricane forecasted to hit category four.
Neither option left room for hesitation.
The control room sat at the end of a narrow hallway. No windows, single entry point. Defensible if you were inside. A killbox if you weren’t careful.
Zach approached from the side, back against the wall. He listened.
Nothing.
The door was unlocked. Already wrong. Protocol mandated manual lock engagement during lockdown periods.
He tested the handle. Smooth. No resistance.
He cracked the door and slid inside.
The room sprawled across fifteen hundred square feet—banks of monitors, server racks, control panels for every major system on the island. Emergency lighting stripped away shadows, leaving everything visible in cold clarity.
Too visible.
Zach’s instincts screamedtrap.
He moved left, keeping the wall at his back, scanning sectors. The main console sat unmanned. Backup stations dark. But movement registers in peripheral vision before conscious thought?—
There.
Behind the generator controls.
The groundskeeper emerged, smooth and unhurried. No surprise on his face. Professional enough to always expect the unexpected.
Eight meters between them. Low light. Obstacles providing cover. The man’s hands were empty but his stance said otherwise—weight forward, balanced, ready.
“Control room’s off-limits,” Zach said. Flat. Giving nothing.
The man smiled. Wrong kind of smile. “Checking the systems. Storm protocol.”
“Groundskeepers don’t run storm protocol.”
“Special circumstances.”
Zach’s eyes tracked details. Dirt on the man’s boots—but clean hands. No calluses. The uniform fit poorly across the shoulders, too tight, like it belonged to someone smaller. And the way he stood—not a worker’s fatigue but a fighter’s readiness.
“Who sent you?” Zach asked.
