The screen flickered, the high-definition feed casting a sickly, sterile glow over the corridor. Marcus didn’t just look at the camera; he stared directly into it, his gaze pinpointing them with predatory precision. He tapped the drive against his palm—a rhythmic, mocking beat that sounded like a countdown.
“He’s already inside the terminal interface,” Savannah said, her voice dropping into a frantic, mechanical rasp. “He’s not just copying the data, Damian. He’s ghosting your credentials into the root directory. Once that bar hits one hundred percent, the system will recognize his commands as yours. Legally, you’ll be the architect of his embezzlement.”
“Can we lock him out?” Damian moved toward the wall panel, fingers hovering over the override, but Savannah slammed her hand down on his wrist.
“Don’t. If you force a hard shutdown now, the protocol triggers a permanent encryption lock. You’ll lose the evidence of his shell companies forever. You’ll be the thief who tried to destroy the records to cover his tracks.”
Damian felt the cold concrete beneath his boots. The weight of the deception felt physical, a crushing pressure in his chest. “So we just watch him finish?”
Savannah’s eyes sharpened. She pulled a small, battered tablet from her jacket—the one piece of hardware she hadn’t let out of her sight for two days. “I didn’t spend forty-eight hours just protecting the drive, Damian. I spent them mapping the vulnerabilities of the man who thought he was smarter than the system.”
She tapped the screen, her fingers a blur. “Marcus is using your badge, but he’s doing it through the local area network in the vault. He’s isolated himself to avoid detection.”
“Which means?”
“Which means he’s disconnected from the building’s physical security protocols,” she said, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “He’s so arrogant he didn’t realize the vault’s air-gapping creates a trap. If I bridge the connection from the service corridor—”
“You pull him back into the main grid,” Damian realized, his blood running cold. “And the system detects the discrepancy.”
“Exactly. The automated containment will seal the room the moment it recognizes a credential mismatch between the badge and the biometric scanner.”
“He’ll be locked in.”
“And you,” Savannah said, meeting his eyes, “will be the one standing on the outside with the logs that prove he brought his own key to the crime scene.”
The lights in the corridor plunged into a deep, emergency amber. The building hummed—a low-frequency vibration that rattled the floorboards. On the monitor, Marcus had reached the console. He was mere seconds away.
“Do it,” Damian commanded.
Savannah hesitated for a heartbeat. “This is going to burn your remaining career, Damian. The system will auto-report the security breach. There’s no undoing the audit trail this will create.”
Damian watched the screen. Marcus was laughing now, a silent, triumphant motion as he slotted the drive into the port. The progress bar crept forward: 45%… 60%…
“Let it burn,” Damian said. “I’m done trying to save the company at the cost of the truth.”
Savannah hit the final key.
The effect was instantaneous. A heavy, magnetic thrum echoed through the floor as the blast doors of the finance vault slammed shut, severing the feed. On the monitor, the screen went black, replaced by a stark, crimson alert: SYSTEM REBOOT. CREDENTIAL MISMATCH DETECTED.
Silence reclaimed the service corridor. The rain mist continued to drift in, cold and cleansing.
Damian let out a long, ragged breath, his hands shaking. He looked at Savannah, who was leaning heavily against the wall, her face drained of color but her eyes fierce.
“Is he trapped?”
“Until the board of directors arrives to open the door,” she said, sliding the tablet into her bag. “And by the time they do, the audit trail will be waiting for them. Every shell, every transfer, every fake invoice.”
Damian walked to the service exit, looking out at the dark, sprawling logistics yard. The sirens were finally beginning to wail in the distance, but for the first time in months, they didn’t sound like alarms. They sounded like an ending.
“What now?” he asked.
Savannah straightened her jacket, her voice steady and hard as steel. “Now, we wait for the police. And then, Damian… we get some sleep.”
