The boiler room exploded into a chaos of blue light, shouts, and the screech of metal. Sheena grabbed a fire extinguisher, swung it like a club, and didn't stop swinging until the only people left standing were her and the man she was supposed to lock away.
Marcus "Vex" Velez was a ghost from the city’s underbelly, a man who had run a massive identity theft ring before she’d helped put him away for a decade. He’d been a model prisoner, a paragon of rehabilitation. And now, three months into his parole, his GPS ankle monitor had gone dark for six hours. sheena ryder blacked
Sheena Ryder reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and deleted the violation report. Then she looked at the man who had shown her that the most dangerous blackout wasn't a lost signal—it was the darkness inside a fortress that had forgotten how to let anyone in. The boiler room exploded into a chaos of
The world narrowed to a pinprick. Sheena had no partner. No backup. The fortress she'd built had no doors—for anyone else. She had walked into a trap not of violence, but of leverage. And Marcus, the con man, the ghost, was the black ink they were using to sign her surrender. He’d been a model prisoner, a paragon of rehabilitation
The serpent man chuckled. "He's smart. Always was. That's why we hired him, back in the day. And that's why we're here now. You've been a very busy bee, Ms. Ryder. Sealing away our associates, freezing our digital assets. You think those little spreadsheets of yours just track parolees? You've been mapping our entire network for two years, and you didn't even know it."
She looked at him. Really looked. Past the bruises, past the file she'd memorized. He gave her the tiniest shake of his head. Don't.
"Let's go," she said. "We have work to do."