"Step back." I wedge my fingertips into the narrow seam between the panel and the wall.
"You can't just pull that off. It's solid steel." Imani protests, but she takes a step back.
My muscles coil. The adrenaline from the data discovery, the need to escape, the absolute necessity to protect my woman all channel into physical force. I grip the edge of the panel. I plant my boots against the concrete. I haul it backward with everything I have.
The rusted welds give one at a time, screaming as they go. The corroded metal buckles, then the panel tears free with a violent screech and clatters across the dark floor.
Imani stares at me. Her lips part. "Okay. Point taken."
Inside the dark cavity sits an iron lever, caked in decades of dust and grease. A mechanical release for the vault's locking bolts.
"Stand clear." I grip the lever. The iron is freezing.
I brace my shoulder against the wall and pull down with my entire body weight. The mechanism resists. Decades of neglect fight against the movement. The muscles in my back scream. The lever gives a fraction of an inch. Then another.
A deafening clank echoes through the vault. The internal locking bolts retract.
The sealed panel gives way with a final metallic scream. A rush of stale, damp air floods in from the narrow service corridor beyond it—the old South Side tunnel network the outpost was cut into. It overruns the sterile air of the vault. The scent of river water and old brick overpowers the ozone.
Inside the cavity waits a narrow service crawlspace, caked in decades of dust and grease.
Not a door release.
A way out.
A rush of stale, damp air rolls in from the hidden corridor beyond it. River water. Old brick. Rusted pipes. The South Side tunnel network.
The exit. The path back to the war.
I turn back to Imani. She stands in the center of the vault. The dull yellow backup glow throws long shadows across her face. She looks at the broken terminal, the severed wires, the destroyed data transfer that cost her sixty thousand dollars. Whatever she had left out there, this just took the last of it.
I cross back to the stretch of concrete floor where I had her under me less than an hour ago. I bend down, grab the tactical jacket, and shrug it on in one fluid motion. The ballistic nylon is still warm from our heat.
"Let's go." I hold out my hand.
Imani does not hesitate. She walks across the concrete. She places her small, warm hand in mine. Her fingers interlock tightly with my own. The grip is firm. Unshakable.
"Where are we going?" She asks the question without a trace of fear.
"To the compound." I pull her close against my side. My arm wraps around her waist. A possessive shield against the dark. "You are under Costa protection now. You belong inside those walls—with me."
We step into the service tunnel. The logs are in my head; the trail behind us is dead. We leave the dark servers gutted behind us, their local controllers burned and their routing trail dead. The mole is active. A strike force is almost certainly already moving. The war is escalating to catastrophic levels.
But the static is gone. The dead channel is open again.
I have my signal. I have my woman. And the Bellanti family is about to find out what happens when the Costa ghost stops hiding and starts hunting.
We walk into the dark tunnels. I press my hand against the small of her back, guiding her forward. Mine.
7
Imani
The screechof rusted metal tearing free from concrete travels straight up through the soles of my boots.
Vincenzo wrenches the sealed service panel past its rusted threshold, tearing the old welds right out of the concrete. The raw, violent display of brute force echoes down the black, gaping throat of the subterranean tunnel ahead of us. Dust cascades from the low ceiling, catching in the dim emergency lighting of the abandoned Federal Reserve outpost.
He does not look back at the room where we almost died. He does not look back at the diagnostic terminal where the truth had flashed green against the black screen before he killed it.
