1
TIERNEY
I’m three hundred feet underground and the air is damp and cold.
Male voices drift through the dark tunnels as I scurry into a room and hide.
“—check the western stack again.”
“Already did. Nothing but heat spikes.”
Boots pound gritty concrete, the armed men I’d dodged a minute ago coming my way. I press myself into the narrow gap between two server housings, body flush to the metal casing, pulse ticking in my throat as if it's an SOS signal.
If I needed help, no one could save me down here. I don’t though, because this is the most important mission my da ever sent me on and I haven’t failed him yet.
That means relying on my skill, wits and the weeks of research I’ve done on this underground vault.
A flashlight beam slices past my face. Sweat slicks my spine despite the cold.
“Swear I saw movement,” one of them mutters.
“The vents move. Happens all the time.”
A hand slaps against the casing inches from my shoulder. I suck in a breath and go rigid.
Electricity hums against my spine, vibrating like a live current. My stomach rumbles, having skipped my last meal. I pray they didn’t hear it.
Another voice comes, even closer now. “Seems to be a fluctuation.”
“Where?”
“Sector three. Could be nothing?”
“Or it could be something.”
The flashlight sweeps again, scanning far too close for comfort, and then it dims. Their footfalls grow distant, and their voices dissolve into the hum of the vault.
Cold air pours over my skin like the winter surf in Ireland.
I wait three heartbeats to make sure I’m alone and creep deeper into the shadows. When I move to the main room, the smell is weird, like recycled air flavored with metal and dry heat from the miles of servers.
The Blood Vault breathes around me with secrets that could bring down every powerful family in the world.
I’ve broken into vaults before. Banks. Private collections. A senator’s panic room in Prague that had some fascinating illicit photographs of him.
However, those places were small-time jobs. None of them held this level information.
Connor’s face flashes behind my eyes while I flank the long wall, my tactical gear cast in green light from the glow of machines. I shake off the tightness in my chest and focus on the ordermy da tasked me with.
If I screw this up, they’ll ruin my brother’s life.
I check my Apple Watch and take a deep breath. Once I’m in the system, I have twelve minutes before it resets, and this vault seals itself from the inside with no way out.
I count out my steps inside my head. Twenty-four. Turn. Seventeen. I’ve etched the route into my head, memorizing it after weeks of reconnaissance.
At the end of the room, another corridor splits in two, the arched ceiling rising overhead. My feet move, not making a sound, until I find more rows of server towers stretching out in front of me, black and monolithic, their indicator lights blinking as if they’re working brains.
The cold crawls under my skin, raising gooseflesh over my scalp.
