He’s wrong. He’s just a man with a bank account, and I’m the woman who knows how to empty it.
"I'm hitting the Cayman accounts first," I murmur, my eyes scanning the lines of data. "If he tries to move liquid assets to hire more security or buy a flight out, the system will flag it and freeze the transaction. Natalia has Halloran’s injunctions queued. The second Vane moves money, the freeze lands, and every federal agency from here to D.C. lights up red."
"And the switch?" Natalia asks, her voice steady.
"Dismantled. Gold Coast killed the primary relay. I’m cutting the backup paths now. Once Wabash goes down, the switch has nowhere clean to send. When the boys hit the warehouse, Vane won’t even be able to send a text message, let alone release his blackmail files."
We work in a silence that is heavy with the weight of what’s happening across the city at Wabash. Every few minutes, the radio on the desk crackles.
“Alpha team in position.”
“Bravo set.”
“Eagle eye has movement.”
I hear Dominic’s voice, cold and commanding. I hear Santi’s sharp directives. And then, once, I hear Alessio.
“Target confirmed. Moving in.”
My heart does a slow, painful roll in my chest. I focus on the screen. I find the node. I find the man.
Alvarado Vane. The ghost financier. The man who signed a check for forty thousand dollars to end my brother’s life because Curtis saw a number that didn’t add up.
I remember the day Curtis died. It wasn’t a dramatic, cinematic moment. It was a Tuesday on the Atlanta leg of the Halloran trail. It was hot, the kind of heat that makes the asphalt smell like tar and old pennies. He was supposed to come home after his shift at Halloran Freight.
Instead, they found him where the money trail ended, in an alley behind our apartment, his eyes staring at a sky he couldn’t see anymore. He looked so small. My big brother, the one who taught me how to do long division and how to hide when the landlord came knocking, was just… gone.
I didn’t cry then. I haven't really cried since. I just got to work.
"I have his accounts," I whisper.
"Do it," Natalia says.
I hit the final sequence. It’s not a body blow, but it feels like one. Across the city, in a dozen different offshore servers, Alvarado Vane’s empire begins to dissolve. The accounts turn red. The firewalls collapse. Natalia’s freeze lands like a guillotine.
A split second later, the radio erupts.
“Breach! Breach! Breach!”
The sounds of gunfire come through the speaker—muffled, rhythmic pops followed by the heavy thud of flashbangs. My breath hitches, my lungs refusing to expand. I can’t see what’s happening, but I can feel it. I can feel Alessio moving through that space, a weapon moving with a surgeon’s precision.
"They're inside," Natalia says, her hand gripping the edge of the desk so hard her knuckles are white. I don't point it out. My own hands are hovering over the keyboard, waiting for the one thing I need.
Minutes stretch into an eternity. The gunfire tapers off into sporadic bursts, then silence. The kind of silence that makes your ears ring.
“Clear,” Dominic’s voice crackles.
“Clear,” Santi repeats.
A pause. A long, agonizing stretch of static.
“Target down,” Alessio says. His voice is flat. Dead. “Vane confirmed by face and prints. Switch stayed dead. It’s over.”
I lean back in my chair, my spine hitting the plastic with a jar.
Over.
Ten years. More than three thousand six hundred days of hunting. Of sleeping with a laptop under my pillow. Of moving from city to city, never hanging a picture, never buying more than two sets of towels because everything had to fit in one duffel bag.
