Chapter 2 - IN THE CROSSHAIRS

Daniel stood in the doorway of the server room, his immaculate suit a jarring contrast to the damp, decaying subway walls. The mercenaries fanned out, their weapons trained on Luca, Grace, and me.

“You always were brilliant, Elena,” Daniel said, stepping toward the central console. “Hiding the server under the city’s old grid? Wiping your own memory? It was a masterpiece. But even masterpieces have flaws.”

He stopped a few feet from me, holding out his hand.

“The archive card. And the decryption key. Now.”

I clutched Grace tightly to my leg. Luca stood rigid, the red laser still burning a hole against his chest. If I breathed wrong, Daniel would have him executed.

“If I give it to you, you’ll kill us anyway,” I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the terror threatening to crush my lungs.

Daniel sighed, feigning hurt. “Elena, you’re my wife. Grace is my daughter. I’m not a monster. I just want what I built. With that archive, no one will ever threaten our family again. We can be safe. We can be royalty.”

“You trafficked human beings, Daniel!” I screamed, the memories fully vivid now. “You bought politicians to cover up murders! You aren’t building a family; you’re building a graveyard!”

Daniel’s expression turned to stone. He lowered his hand.

He looked at one of his mercenaries. “Shoot Bellandi in the kneecap.”

“No!” I lunged forward, slamming the memory card and the silver locket onto the steel desk next to the computer terminal. “Take it! Just don’t hurt him!”

Luca locked eyes with me, a silent plea to stop, but I couldn’t watch him die.

Daniel smiled, looking deeply satisfied. He picked up the plastic memory card and the silver microchip. He slid the card into the port on the server. The massive screens on the wall flickered to life, displaying the logo of the Commission—the circle divided into twelve sections.

“Finally,” Daniel whispered.

He picked up the silver microchip from my locket and inserted it into the secondary drive.

He began typing rapidly. He was bypassing the final firewall to gain absolute control of the data.

I slowly backed up until my hand brushed against the edge of a metal filing cabinet. When I built this room, I had hidden a failsafe. A small, physical switch beneath the desk that would seal the blast doors and trigger an EMP. It was meant to destroy the drives in a worst-case scenario.

I just needed a distraction.

I looked down at Grace. She was staring at her torn blue rabbit, which had fallen to the floor near Daniel’s feet.

“Daddy?” Grace said, her small voice cutting through the hum of the servers.

Daniel paused his typing and looked down. “What is it, Grace?”

“You dropped something.”

She pointed to the floor. Beneath the desk, a small, folded piece of paper had slipped out of Daniel’s jacket pocket when he leaned over.

Daniel frowned and bent down to retrieve it.

As soon as his eyes broke contact with the screen, I slammed my hand under the desk and ripped the emergency lever downward.

CLANG.

The massive steel blast doors of the server room slammed shut, sealing Daniel, the mercenaries, Luca, Grace, and myself inside.

Red emergency lights flashed. An automated voice filled the room.

“SECURITY BREACH DETECTED. SYSTEM LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL INITIATED. OXYGEN DEPLETION IN TEN MINUTES.”

Daniel spun around, his face twisting into absolute rage. “What did you do?!”

“I locked us in,” I said, stepping between him and Grace. “The EMP didn’t trigger because you bypassed the firewall, but the doors are magnetically sealed. The only way to open them is to cancel the data transfer.”

Daniel lunged at me, grabbing me by the throat and slamming me against the server rack. “Cancel it! Open the doors!”

“I can’t!” I gasped, clawing at his hands. “Only the master user can! And if you cancel it, the archive deletes itself!”

Luca roared, tackling Daniel off me. The two men crashed into a row of servers. The mercenaries raised their weapons, but in the tight, chaotic space, they couldn't fire without hitting Daniel.

I fell to the floor, coughing violently. Grace rushed to my side, handing me the piece of paper Daniel had dropped.

“Mommy, look.”

I unfolded the paper. It was a flight manifest. Private jet out of JFK. Two passengers.

Daniel Cross.

And Grace Cross.

My name wasn’t on it.

He was never going to let me live. He only wanted Grace.

I looked up at the computer screen. The upload progress bar was at 90%. In less than a minute, Daniel would have everything, and we would suffocate in this room.