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BEFORE THE EXPLOSION
“Itold you something didn’t feel right.” Leon inclined his head to me respectfully as I exited the lobby, a large smile on his face despite the circumstances. Returning his smile, I embraced the young Italian before taking a step back and checking the feed that was displayed on the monitors in the security corridor.
He was right. Something was off.
“You cleared the building?”
Leon nodded. “The minute the breach was flagged, we called a code black,” he confirmed. “We’re the only ones here besides the men guarding the vault.”
“Good.” I took a deep, calming breath as Leon led us to the stairs that descended into the parking garage. The entrance to the vault sat on the other side of the parking garage, concealed beneath one of the many grates that dotted the underground structure. Whoever had breached our security system last night was careless.
They had wanted to be seen.
But why?
My gut twisted, telling me that nothing was adding up. The obvious play would be to go for the money we’d secured from the cargo container. But we’d already shuffled most of that cash through our businesses. It wasn’t in the vault any longer. There was a possibility that whoever breached our system didn’t know that, but I didn’t believe that was the case.
There was something we hadn’t seen yet.
A missing piece of the puzzle we hadn’t found.
Protocol during a breach meant clearing the entire building. We didn’t know what the hacker had managed to mess with. Security. Employee IDs. Mark was still working on finding any corrupt data. He’d come up short.
It would be difficult to sneak a physical person past me or my men, but most of us had been absent since my supposed death. I couldn’t discount the distinct possibility that this wasn’t the first security breach.
“Found anything?” I asked Mark over the comm line.
“No,” Mark huffed angrily. I could hear the sounds of his fingers pounding against his keyboard. “Nothing. They didn’t touch any of the systems. It’s like they showed up, waited, and left.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Andrei muttered. I had to agree with my father. Why bother infiltrating one of the most secure buildings in the city if you weren’t there to obtain information? Was it to clear the building? No one outside of the organization knew of our protocols.
Unless we had a mole.
Rage simmered in my chest at the mere thought of one of my soldiers betraying me.
“Help me here,” Vas muttered to Leon when we’d reached the far end of the parking garage. The pair grabbed hold of the wrought-iron grate, and with a short grunt, they lifted. We descended the stairs one at a time before making our way down the singular hallway that ended at the vault door.
I let my gaze wander the area, searching for discrepancies once we reached the door. Nothing was out of place. The two guards posted outside were the same pair that had been assigned the post for the last year. Their eyes widened in shock when they saw me.
“Pakhan,” they whispered in awe-tinged voices.
“Marius.” I nodded at the first guard before turning my gaze to the second. “George. How are you?”
“G-good,” Marius stuttered slightly. “We’re good. It’s damn good to see you alive, sir.”
“Thank you,” I told him sincerely. “Anything to report?” The two men straightened up and shook their heads.
“No, sir,” George reported. “No sign of movement. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“That’s good to hear.” My head turned toward Leon. “Let’s get this over with.”
Leon nodded and stepped toward the vault. It was lined with concrete and steel thick enough to keep out most radioactivity and withstand a nuclear bomb. The vault was more like a bunker. The door was made of carbon steel and completely independent from the rest of the building. From the Wi-Fi to the life support system.
Completely impenetrable.
A keypad sat on either side of the door, along with a retina scanner. The only ones with access were the men in my upper circle. And Ava. But I didn’t think anyone had told her that yet.
Each person was assigned their own code. For security reasons, a new code was generated at the start of every week to help prevent breaches. One code needed to be used in conjunction with another code, or the door wouldn’t open, and the retinal scans had to be done at the same time.
