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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Knight

Scanning the motel parking lot through a gap in the curtains, I catalog each vehicle in my head until I find what I’m looking for—a dark blue Honda Civic, early 90s model. Old enough to start without electronic interference, and common enough to blend in. The owner is probably still asleep, and won’t notice it’s missing for hours. By which point, we’ll be far away.

“Ready?” I check my gun, then the tablet and flash drive—everything that matters to me right now packed into one small bag.

Glitch nods, but her fingers keep twisting in the hem of her shirt. The bruises on her wrists, above the bandages, stand out against her skin, a constant reminder of how this mess started … and how quickly everything changed.

“Stay close to me.” I ease the door open, checking sight lines. “Move casually, like we belong here.”

The morning sun hasn’t burned off the fog yet, giving us better cover than I could have hoped for. We cross the parking lot, my hand hovering near her back, not quite touching. Every vehicle we pass could hide someone watching. Every window could conceal a camera.

The Civic’s driver’s side lock gives way easily. They don’t make them like this anymore, sadly. Glitch keeps watch while I work, her tension obvious in her stiff stance, and the way her fingers keep flexing. The door opens with a click that sounds way too loud in the quiet lot.

“Get in.” I slide behind the wheel, pulling tools from my pocket. The steering column comes apart with practiced ease. Muscle memory guides my hands—strip these wires, touch those ones together. The engine catches on the second try.

Beside me, Glitch fastens her seatbelt with shaking hands. “Have you done this before?”

“No, I learned it on YouTube this morning.” I ease the car into drive. “Obviously, I’ve done this before. Try to look less nervous.”

We pull onto the street, keeping to the speed limit, ensuring there’s no reason to draw any attention to us. I keep checking the mirrors, watching for anyone paying too much attention to a boring Honda being driven by boring people.

“Where are we going?” She keeps her voice low, like someone might hear us through the closed windows, and above the sound of the engine.

“Somewhere safer.” I take the next right, following a route that will tell me if we’re being followed. “I need to make sure we’re clean first.”

“Clean?”

“Not being followed.”

“Oh …”

The city goes by outside the windows in a blur of morning traffic and sleepy pedestrians. None of them know that they’re sharing the road with fugitives.

After thirty minutes of driving around, and wasting gas, I’m confident we’re not being tracked, which means it’s time to head toward the next safehouse. The property has been mine for years, bought through shell companies and kept off any digital record. That’s a lesson I didn’t need Victor to teach me. It comes courtesy of my parents and my brothers.

Always have backup plans for your backup plans, and places to lay low that don’t have your name attached to them.

The industrial district gives way to abandoned warehouses, then to scrubland. It’s the perfect place to ditch the car. I don’t want to leave it too close to where we’re going, but I also don’t want to make Glitch walk too far. Pulling into an overgrown lot behind a semi-collapsed building, I kill the engine.

“Why are we stopping?”

“Thought I’d dump your body here.”

Her eyes jump to me.

“Can’t risk the car being found near where we’re going.” I grab the bag. “We have to walk from here.”

She looks at the rough terrain ahead, then down at sneakers that have clearly seen better days. “How far?”

“Far enough.” I check the area one final time. “Stay close, and watch your footing.”

The early morning sun is warm on my back as we pick our way through tall grass and broken concrete. Sweat darkens the back of her shirt, but she doesn’t complain. Her determination would be admirable, if it wasn’t so fucking frustrating. Every step she takes reminds me that she’s my responsibility now. She’s my problem to solve. My fucking glitch in the matrix.

The safehouse comes into view after forty minutes of walking. An abandoned storage facility that looks like it hasn’t been touched in decades. Perfect camouflage for a place that’s anything but abandoned inside.

“ This is safer?” She eyes the rusted metal walls dubiously.

“Appearances are deceptive.” I lead her to a hidden keypad, and enter a code. “Like someone breaking into my apartment looked harmless, yet they were carrying a weapon.”

She sighs. I hide a smile. Needling her is fast becoming a favorite passtime. I don’t want to look too deeply into the reasons.

“I didn’t know about the phone.”

“I’m aware.” The door clicks open.

The interior looks exactly like it should—dusty, abandoned, forgotten. But behind a false wall, I’ve got everything we need for now. Generator power, basic amenities, and most importantly, a hardened laptop that has never touched an outside network.

A small gasp escapes her, when the false wall slides back revealing everything inside.

“There’s water in the cooler.” I unlock the metal storage cabinet and take out the laptop, carry it over to the table, and boot it up. Once the screen comes to life, I plug in the flash drive.

She pulls up a chair, close enough to see the screen, and I glance over at her. The walk here has brought color to her cheeks, making her look less fragile. Less like someone I need to protect. I shut that down. The thought is dangerous.

"What are you looking for?"

“Repeated patterns, messages in the code.” The logs start scrolling as I input commands. “When Victor sets tests, he leaves breadcrumbs. I just need to find them.”

Hours pass as I dig through the data. It’s easier to focus on the laptop instead of the tablet, but no less simple to sift through the information. My eyes are burning from staring at the screen, but I can’t stop. My gut is telling me that there is something here, hidden in the sequences. The crude assault style was masking something else—a mathematical progression that seems familiar, but just out of reach.

“There.” I highlight a section, ignoring the fact I’m bringing her into my world. “Look at the timing between these breaches.”

She leans closer, her shoulder brushing mine. “What am I looking at?”

“A signature.” I expand the sequence. “Victor used to make me solve puzzles like this. Mathematical progressions hidden in code. Each solution leads to the next clue.”

“What is this one telling you?”

“Coordinates maybe. Or …” I stop as another pattern emerges. The numbers align in a way that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “Son of a bitch.”

"What?"

“It’s a warning.” My eyes jump from line to line. “The attack wasn’t meant to destroy my systems completely. It was meant to force me away from them, and look into the logs. To find this.”

“But how did he know you’d bring it with you?”

“Because he’d have disowned me as his student if I hadn’t made sure I took it.”

She shifts closer. “What is the warning?”

“That someone is watching my properties.” I highlight another sequence. “These numbers … they’re surveillance coordinates. Times. Dates. Victor is telling me I’m being monitored, and have been for months.”

“But why would he tell you?”

I blow out a breath. “That’s going to be part of the puzzle he wants me to solve. Is it Victor who’s monitoring me or someone else?”

“Like who?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I lean back, mind picking apart everything I’ve learned so far. “Victor knows enough about my methods to be able to breach my security. But if he just wanted to let me know he’s still alive, and see if I’ve become complacent, this is extreme, even for him.”

I shake my head, gnawing on the inside of my cheek while I try and figure out what Victor’s doing. “If Victor is warning me that someone else is monitoring me, then that changes the game. It means someone else is behind this, and it’s not one of his tests.”

Her hand touches my arm, the contact sending an unwelcome surge of awareness through me. “What do we do?”

“I have to figure out what he’s trying to tell me.” I force my attention back to the screen, away from her.

The numbers blur as fatigue sets in, but I can’t stop now. Not when I’m finally seeing the breadcrumbs Victor left for what they are. Not when every new pattern suggests there’s more to this than someone just trying to fuck with me. And not when the woman beside me might be the key to understanding it all … Or the reason everything falls apart.