Page 54 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

"Cipher has the compass." I gesture toward the workbench. "It's a military-grade data cache. He's breaking the encryption now."

Hope flares in her expression, a brightness cutting through the exhaustion. "Does it have the location? Do you know where she is?"

"Not yet." I keep my voice level. "It's a hostile system. It's going to take time."

She looks past me, watching Cipher and Ivy work. The tactical operation in the center of the facility is alien to her world.

"My father was a monster." A quiet confession, laced with bitter sorrow. "He built a cage for innocent girls, and he financed it playing the perfect, respectable businessman."

"He was." I refuse to offer empty platitudes. The truth is ugly. "But he also gave you the weapon to tear it down."

She turns her gaze back to me. The sorrow hardens into resolve. She's forging her grief into a weapon.

"When you find the location," she says, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper, "you're going to take me with you."

The protective instinct surges. "Not a chance."

"Dax." She steps closer, invading my space. The scent of my soap clings to her skin, an intoxicating reminder of the last three hours. "She's my best friend. I'm not going to sit in a rusted shack while you fight my battles."

"It isn't a battle." I grip her upper arms, fingers pressing into the fabric of the T-shirt. "It's a slaughter. The Consortium's central hub will be fortified with a paramilitary force. You have no tactical training. You're a liability in a firefight."

"You took me into the Consortium's compound." She lifts her chin, challenging the operator. "That was a trap, and I walked out of it beside you. You already decided I could handle myself. Why is this different?"

"That trap closed on us. Fighting you out of it wasn't a choice—it was the only door." The memory of her diving into the line of fire sends a spike of terror through my veins. "The hub is a choice. Keeping you close is not the same as marching you into a meat grinder."

"You don't get to decide my fate." She tries to pull away, but my grip holds. The frustration in her eyes is a blazing inferno. "You don't get to lock me in a tower to keep me safe."

"I get to keep you alive." The words come out a harsh, possessive growl. Beneath them, a feral instinct overrides the tactical logic—claim her, protect her, never let her out of my sight.

"I'm not yours to control." Anger flashes across her face, sharp and brilliant. "I'm not a target. I'm not an objective. I'm a person, and I'm choosing to fight."

The argument is derailed by a triumphant shout from the workbench.

"Got it!" Cipher slams his hand against the metal table.

I release Lily's arms and turn toward the center of the room.

"Talk to me." I cross the concrete floor; Lily right on my heels.

"The polymorphic cipher collapsed." Cipher's fingers fly across the keys, organizing the influx of data. "Ivy's tandem attack forced a buffer overflow. The firewall is down."

The ruggedized screen fills with columns of plain-text spreadsheets and regional property records.

"It's a regional expense ledger." Ivy leans closer, tracking the scrolling data. "Water bills. Commercial electricity accounts. High-bandwidth internet contracts. Arthur Masters wasn't holding the global treasury. He was paying the local operational overhead."

"I don't care about the utility payments." I stare at the screen. "Find the physical hub. Find the holding facility."

"The bills are the map." Cipher types a rapid string of commands, cross-referencing the expense cache. "A facility holding that many people requires massive water filtration and industrial climate control. I'm filtering the ledger for properties with anomalous commercial power consumption."

A map of Southeast Asia replaces the financial ledger. A red beacon pulses in the mountainous region of northern Thailand, near the Myanmar border.

"Bingo." Cipher taps the screen. "Coordinates confirmed. It's an abandoned Cold War-era radar installation. Massive subterranean structure. Heavily fortified."

"Are there heat signatures?" Rook steps up behind Cipher, the point man already analyzing the objective.

"Running a satellite pass now." Ivy taps her earpiece, accessing a classified orbital feed. "Standby."

The tension in the room is a physical pressure. Lily stands beside me, her gaze locked on the red beacon. Her friend is there. The nightmare is tangible.