Page 53

53

CIEL

I stared down at the map of New York City. On it, I had drawn both horizontal and vertical lines to separate it and the surrounding boroughs into a massive grid system.

“I can take out the internet in each of these grids, one by one,” I said, pointing to the red lines slicing through the map. I’d planned out the timing of this meticulously, set up the programming, and made sure that I could execute it on command. All I needed was a thumbs up that we were good to go. “One minute and thirty seconds to each grid, rolling through the city, piece by piece.”

I’d been poring over the problem of Max’s hacker since we’d finished the Alacrán Cartel. Leona would say that I was burying my lack of feeling in this work, but it was the only thing I knew how to do. My work always made me feel better.

This plan was a huge fucking risk, but it just might work. It just might help us narrow down her location and finally remove Lucia Greco as a threat.

Leona stood beside me, also staring at the map. She was the one who triggered this idea with her question in the kitchen.

“You think you can figure out where she is by cutting the internet out?” Her eyes flickered back and forth over the grid as she processed the plan. Obi stood beside her, watching, and listening. The two of them had been practically inseparable since they made up, always ducking their heads, and planning .

I nodded. “She’s most likely using a grounded internet connection, something direct, and hardwired. I can knock it out for a short time. As soon as she loses connection, though, she’ll boot up her satellite link—probably faster than anyone else in the city. I can then ping outgoing connections to the satellites to narrow down possible locations. Even if someone else gets up and running as quickly as Lucia should, we’ll have at least a massively narrowed-down list of options for where she could be. Then we can follow up one by one until we find her.”

“What if she doesn’t have a sat link?” Leona asked, tossing her braided hair over her shoulder.

“I have one,” I responded with a shrug. “Any hacker worth their salt would have a backup internet connection. Without it, we’re unable to do our jobs. It was probably one of the first things she did when she set up systems in New York. And if I cut out all the internet in the area, she’ll be forced to attempt connecting via satellite.”

“Why so short of a time period, Ciel?” Obi asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you not think it will take her longer than a minute and thirty seconds to connect? Or that it will take you longer to ping her location?”

I scratched the back of my neck and grimaced. “I could knock it out for longer, but we risk creating bigger problems citywide. Hospitals, emergency services, all the big important stuff runs on the internet—and they all probably have their own backup systems as well. But Lucia is experienced and prepared enough that she’ll boot up the backup. The other systems will eventually come online, but rolling outages of this scale are sure to gain attention, anyway. There will probably be investigations into what happened, and the longer I keep the internet out, the more risk it poses to us, too.”

“So a minute and thirty,” Leona said. “That’s the sweet spot.”

“I hope,” I responded. “I didn’t want to cause absolute havoc throughout the city—though I absolutely could if I wanted to. This felt like the best option to force Lucia into action while minimizing collateral damage or unforeseen consequences.”

“What if she’s in our grid?” she asked, pressing her finger to the location of the penthouse on the map.

“As always, you’re brilliant,” I said, then quickly kissed her forehead. “Yes, that is the one glaring hole in this plan. I can knock out our grid last, and already be connected to my satellite backup, but we still run the risk of outage. If we are in the outage spot, I can’t find her.”

She pursed her lips. “That’s why you kept our box the smallest.”

“That’s right. Fingers crossed that we can find her in another grid first.”

I’d been tracking Lucia’s fake name and travel papers since narrowing down that she was Max’s hacker. She had arrived in New York City a week ago, and I hadn’t seen any other movement via planes, trains, rental cars, or ferries. It was possible she had changed names, or that she had caught a ride somewhere outside the city, but that felt unlikely. If she came here, it was a fair assumption that she’d stay close to Max.

An assumption we’d just have to hope was correct.

“Ryuji, Wynn, Caspian, and I need to be casing the city,” Obi said.

“Ah, yes,” I said as I pulled out a marker and took off the cap. I drew four dots strategically around the map. “Once we get a ping on her location, we need to collapse on it so she doesn’t relocate. I’m guessing she’s skittish, and she’ll bolt if she catches a whisper of us on her trail. She may even recognize that I’ve pinged her satellite. So, if the four of you start at one of these dots, you’ll be placed in the most optimal positions to respond when I get a ping. The rest of us can haul ass to get there and cut off her escape.”

“Well done, Ciel,” Obi said with a nod. “This is excellent work.”

I swallowed, glancing at Leona, who was beaming at me. Obi had never openly praised my work, at least not like that. “It was Leona’s idea,” I mumbled.

Obi shook his head. “The credit belongs to you for bringing this plan to life.”

“You’re a fucking genius, babe,” Leona said as she raised to her toes and kissed me. “Accept it.”

I grinned, my chest ballooning with pride.

Finally , we were going to take out this thorn in my side. Lucia had been haunting me, like a ghost whispering taunts in my ear, since the night of the club explosion and I’d lost Max’s trail. Now, I’d get the upper hand back. It was about fucking time.

I caught the satellite upload by the sixth grid.

This grid was in Vero territory, right on the border of Tommaso territory. The alert flashed across my computer screen. The sight sent my heart racing.

There you are.

Leona sucked in a breath beside me. “Lucia? Is that her?”

My fingers raced across my keyboard. Within thirty seconds of the internet going out in this grid, an outgoing signal locked onto a satellite and restored connection to this IP address. It was much too fast for someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

I followed the signal, flipping through my programs to pinpoint the location.

“There,” I said when my computer locked on an apartment building in one of the affluent neighborhoods. I relayed the coordinates to our comms. “Obi, you’re the closest.”

“Copy,” he responded. Each of the guys had taken one of our vehicles and was stationed at the four points I’d marked down earlier. “Meet at this location.”

“You got it,” Cas responded. He was the next closest. We thought it best to not place him in Vero territory, just in case, but he could reach Obi’s location in about ten minutes. The rest of us would follow shortly after, so long as we didn’t get caught up in any traffic.

I nodded to Leona as she helped me disconnect the tablets I’d linked to my system. We could keep our lock on Lucia’s trail while still going mobile. I had her IP address, but I also wanted to hack into any surrounding security cameras to track her in case she tried to flee. At the same time, I was actively trying to break into her systems and shut her down.

The last thing we wanted was her calling in backup.

“I’m sending more pictures of her to you,” I said through my earpiece to all the guys. “Remember, she cannot be harmed. We just have to get her away from her systems and keep her under control for the time being.”

“Do not make enemies of the Camorra,” Obi added. “Caution and control.”

“I love a good kidnapping,” Ryuji responded as an engine revved in the background. He and Wynn had taken our two motorcycles; Cas and Obi both had armored SUVs. With their speed and maneuverability, they could reach Lucia’s apartment in no time.

Leona and I raced to the van in the parking lot basement. I drove so she could monitor the tablets and signed me into my mobile computer systems. The internet was already restored in Lucia’s area, and she’d switched back the hardwired connection, but I’d noticed no other drops in service or activity. She had an active IP address, but I still had no luck breaking through her security defenses.

“She’s still there,” I said through the radio. “Obi, are you there yet?”

“I am pulling up now, but there are two men guarding the door outside,” he responded, displeasure carrying in his voice. “I think I recognize them.”

“Really?” Leona asked. I glanced at her in the rearview. “How?”

“From the night of Giulio’s meeting.”

Leona’s jaw clenched. “Max’s men. This has to be her, then.”

“I’ll verify when I get there,” Cas added. “Two minutes out.”

“Leona, listen to me.” I locked eyes with her in the mirror. “I want you to be ready to cut the power to the building. Pull up the program and run the commands on my mark, just like I showed you, okay?”

She nodded. Just like I thought when I asked her to train under me in tech, she’d picked it up like a natural. What most people take a year to learn, she’d learned in less than a few months. Her fingers typed furiously, but then she paused, and waited for my signal.

I loved her so fucking much. She was perfect for me. For all of us.

“Those are definitely Vero soldiers,” Cas finally said, the rumble of his motorcycle clear in the background. “Old generation, but they were there, and sided with Max.”

“Fucking great,” Leona grumbled.

Max was guarding Lucia. She was definitely working for him. If we could cut her off tonight, we would deal a massive blow to his control over New York. He’d be like a boat without power in the middle of the dark ocean—sailing blindly into deadly waters.

“Obi and Cas, be prepared to take out those men,” I commanded as I glanced at the GPS. Only a few minutes until we arrived. Ryuji and Wynn had to be close, too. “We have to be extremely coordinated. Otherwise, she’s going to run, and she’ll disappear like smoke.”

“On your word, Ciel,” Obi said.

I needed us to be close enough to mark all the exits before we alerted Lucia to our attack. If we mistimed this, if she got away…My hands clenched on the steering wheel. She wouldn’t.

I’d taken out the man who killed my parents. I’d tracked down this ghost. I would take her out, here and now.

“ETA two minutes,” I murmured.

“I’m here,” Wynn announced. “Obi, I have eyes on you.”

“Same,” Ryuji said. “Waiting on the side street. I see another man back here, just standing by a back door. He’s got an Uzi.”

“There may be more inside, too,” I said. “Cutting power in one minute. As soon as the power is cut, take them out.”

As we pulled around the corner, I didn’t slow the van.

“Cut the power, Leona,” I said.

She typed the command, and the electricity to the entire street went down at the same time the van pulled up in front of the entrance. The men standing guard barely had time to look up before Obi and Cas’s bullets knocked their heads back. They collapsed, blood splattered on the entrance.

“My guy’s dead,” Ryuji’s voice cut through the comms. “You guys good?”

“Two confirmed kills,” Obi responded. “Stand by for breach.”

Our habits took over. In a blur, the four of us coordinated entry into the apartment building as we’d done countless times before. A well-oiled machine, we fell into the patterns we’d drilled time and time again. Ryuji and Obi at the vanguard. Wynn and I were at the rear.

“Do we know what floor she’s on?” Cas asked. He hung behind the four of us, practically glued to Leona’s side, but even she had her hands on a gun and carefully crept beside him. All of Wynn’s training paid off in her relaxed, yet primed stance.

The six of us, working together in the field for the first time.

“No,” I replied. “Keep your eyes peeled. We need to make sure she doesn’t double back on us and make a run for it.”

“Think she knows she’s under attack?” Leona whispered.

My lips thinned. “Absolutely.”

We crept up the stairs. Her IP address had led me to payment records that indicated she was in an apartment on the second floor, but it was difficult to know if that was accurate. We had to go off the best information available.

“We should split up,” Ryuji suggested.

I pursed my lips, but before I could answer, a crash sounded behind us. Shattering glass.

“Back this way!” Wynn shouted, sprinting down the hallway. A flash of brown hair leapt from the second-story window. “She’s on the run!”

“Shit,” I hissed. We had to catch her before she disappeared. We rushed back down the stairs, past some onlookers, who gasped and screamed at the sight of our weapons.

“Move!” Leona shouted, pushing past another young woman.

By the time we got back to the van parked in the front, a motorcycle engine revved, and peeled down the street, head covered by a black helmet.

“Follow her!” I shouted. The guys fanned back to their vehicles. Leona and I yanked open the back door and jumped inside. “Leona, drive!”

She slid into the front seat without a word. I logged into my systems, trying to keep a lock on her through security cameras. Lucia wove through traffic, mounted curbs, almost ran over pedestrians.

“I cannot follow,” Obi said with a grunt. “Blocked.”

“Same,” Cas echoed. “Fuck this traffic.”

Wynn and Ryuji’s motorcycles whipped past us, staying on her trail.

“I can see you. The two of you need to split up, one of you keep on her, and the other needs to try to get ahead of her to cut her off.”

“Got it,” Ryuji grunted. “Wynn, you try to cut her off. I’ll keep my eyes on her.”

“We’ll get her, Ciel,” Leona said from the front seat.

“We have to catch her before she alerts the entire city that we’re after her. I’m trying to jam any outgoing signals in case she’s calling for help.”

We chased her through the city, Wynn gradually gaining ground on her.

I zoomed out on the GPS. “Force her south and then west toward the Hudson. She’s going to run into the park.”

They followed my commands as we wove through traffic, with Ryuji and Wynn herding her exactly where I wanted. Finally, we cornered her. Wynn cut her off in one direction while Ryuji had her pinned in the other. With the water at her back, she had nowhere to run. Even at this time of evening, there were still plenty of people around, but we didn’t have any other choice.

“Don’t move!” Wynn shouted at her, dismounting from his motorcycle. With practiced movement, Lucia pulled a gun from her jacket and fired. He ducked to the side and grunted. Civilians started screaming. We didn’t have long before the park would be crawling with cops.

“Wynn, did you get shot?” My heart choked my throat.

“No,” he replied, breaths heavy. “Get that gun out of her hand, Ryu.”

“Do not kill her,” Obi warned.

“I know, I know.” Ryu aimed his gun. A shot cracked through the air and Lucia’s gun flew to the side. She ducked, hand over her head, as she tried to hide behind a knee-high brick wall.

Leona and I jumped out of the van, our own weapons raised. Ryuji and Wynn followed her, hopping over the wall, and training their weapons on her.

She stood slowly, eyes flicking back and forth across all four of us before she sighed and raised both hands. “Wait,” she called in English, tinted with an Italian accent. “Stop.”

I kept my gun raised but walked closer. Giving up? Fucking doubted it. “We have to find her phone.”

“Stay here,” Wynn said to Leona as he and I approached her side by side. Ryuji followed from the other direction.

“Keep your weapon on her and I’ll search her,” Wynn said as we got close.

Her eyes were keen and careful, but she didn’t move. Wynn reached inside her jacket pocket to pull out a phone. He turned toward me to hand me the device, but the moment his attention shifted from her, the woman dropped. Grabbing a knife from her boot, she lunged toward Wynn’s exposed side.

“No!” I reached forward, shifting him, blocking him however I could. A slice of jagged pain tore through my hand. Did I block him in time?

It took all of an instant for Wynn to right himself and tackle her. The phone clattered to the ground between us. The screen was lit up, an outgoing signal clearly displayed on the screen. I stomped on it without hesitation, destroying it. Fuck.

“Ciel!” Wynn gasped as he finally got her subdued on the ground. Her face dug into the concrete; her arms pinned behind her back.

“Vaffanculo,” she spit, struggling while Ryuji grabbed her other arms.

“Fuck you, too,” Leona hissed right back, grabbing my hand. She sucked in a breath. “Ciel.”

“Wynn?” He had to be okay. She didn’t slice him, did she?

“I’m fine,” he grunted as he and Ryuji yanked Lucia to her feet. She stopped struggling, but the glare she leveled at each of us could wilt flowers.

“Ciel,” Leona said again, clutching at my arm.

The three of them stared at my hand. I looked down to see the knife still protruding from my palm. As soon as my eyes locked onto the blade, the injury screamed up my arm—like my brain had finally caught up and realized there was a fucking knife sticking out of me.

“Shit,” I hissed. Blood dripped to the ground. My entire hand was red. Sirens sounded in the distance. Onlookers watched from a few hundred feet away. “We have to get out of here. She called for backup and the cops are close.”

“We have to patch you up,” Wynn said, eyes wide, and tone frantic. “You’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I know,” I responded, jerking my head to the van. “Let’s go.”

I can’t move my fingers .

“Obi, Cas, we have her,” Ryu said in the comms as he and Wynn tossed Lucia in the back of the van. He secured her arms behind her back with zip ties. She spit at him again, throwing more curses at us. He found a roll of duct tape, pulled a long piece, and stuck it over her mouth.

“Caspian, contact Giulio and confirm his men can guard her,” Obi said in our ears. Leona’s eyes were locked on my hand, pants racking her chest.

“Done,” Cas said.

“I will contact the Camorra and inform them she is under our protection and will not be harmed. We will return her under the terms of a truce,” Obi added. “Ryuji, please relay that message to her.”

“All right.” Ryuji turned to the woman. “Listen up, Lucia Greco. We are not going to kill you. You’re just going somewhere quiet for a while because we just need you and your pesky hacking out of the picture. So behave, and you’ll be totally fine. We’re gonna send you home if your grandpa agrees to a truce. Got it?”

The woman glared at him but said nothing.

“Great, now keep quiet,” he said as he climbed out of the back of the van. “We have to get our stuff and get out of here. Wynn, take your motorcycle back. I’ll follow with mine. Leona, you have to drive. Ciel can’t with that hand.”

“Should we call Willow?” Leona asked Wynn, both of them focused on the blood still pouring from of my hand.

“I’m fine,” I responded. I can’t feel my hand. I was much more concerned about wiping the footage from that encounter. At the very least, we needed to get our contacts in the police force to cover up what happened. Too many people saw. “I’m not going to bleed out. We can patch it up back at the penthouse. Go get the motorcycle and let’s leave.”

We had Lucia. We did it. That was all that mattered right now.

Wynn gulped. “I don’t want to damage the nerves if we pull it out.”

“Wynn,” I said with enough force to gain his full attention. His eyes locked on mine. “Listen to me. I’m fine. Wrap a bandage around it for now, and we’ll deal with it when we get home.”

Wynn stared at me for so long, I felt blood heat my cheeks. Without warning, he grabbed the back of my neck and leaned his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry.”

As quickly as it happened, he leaned away, and handed the stack of bandages to Leona. They secured the knife in my hand and stanched the bleeding. All the while, my forehead burned from his touch.

“We’ll meet you at home,” Wynn said curtly before hopping out of the back.

Leona slid into the front seat the same moment he slammed the back door shut. The lock engaged. She maneuvered the van back to the main streets so we could head north again.

Lucia glared at me, eyes roaming over my mobile setup, but all the systems were locked. Even if she somehow got her hands free, she wouldn’t be able to get in.

I clutched my hand to my chest, watching her carefully. We caught her. I did it.

Lucia Greco, the one hacker who bested me multiple times, was now out of commission and tied up in the back of my van. Let’s see you stay ten steps ahead of us now, Max .

If my hand weren’t on fire, I would have whooped with joy. My mouth couldn’t tell if it wanted to twist into a smile or twist in pain. Despite the lightning radiated up my arm and across my torso with every single bump in the road, I finally felt the relief I expected when I drug my knife across Arboleda’s throat.

My parents could rest in peace.

My family was safe from this thorn. I’d done my job, and we had the upper hand.

I tried to wiggle my fingers just to see if I could.

Only for nothing to happen.