Chapter 8 - The Bounty
Ten million dollars.
Every hitman, mercenary, and desperate street thug in New York City was now actively hunting us.
Larkin tried to sit up, his face pale with pain and absolute fury.
"He played the Commission and the feds at the same time," Larkin ground out, clutching his bandaged shoulder.
"If Thomas controls the narrative, I am a dead man walking."
I handed him a painkiller and forced him to lie back down on the metal table.
"We need proof that Thomas ordered the hit at the hotel," I said, my mind racing through the syndicate’s infrastructure.
Larkin nodded grimly.
"All of Thomas’s private communications and illegal offshore transfers are backed up on the syndicate’s master server."
"If we can extract that data, we can prove to the Commission that Thomas is the traitor."
"Where is the server?" I asked.
"It’s in the basement of the Glass Tower," Larkin replied, his eyes dark with defeat.
"It is heavily guarded, biometric-locked, and right in the middle of Thomas’s newly acquired territory."
"I can't walk through the front doors without getting my head blown off."
I stood up, walking over to the small duffel bag I kept hidden in the safehouse.
I pulled out a pair of sensible gray slacks, a high-necked beige blouse, and a pair of cheap, flat shoes.
"You can't walk through the front doors," I said, stripping off the ruined black silk dress.
"But a painfully ordinary, invisible secretary who works on the forty-second floor can."
Larkin stared at me, shaking his head violently.
"Absolutely not, Penelope."
"It is a suicide mission."
"They know you were with me at the gala."
"They know the woman in the black dress," I corrected, tying my hair back into a severe, boring clip.
"They don't know the woman who brings you coffee."
I left Larkin locked in the safehouse with a loaded gun and a promise to return.
By 8:00 AM, I was walking through the revolving doors of the Glass Tower, carrying a tray of iced coffees.
The lobby was swarming with Thomas’s heavily armed enforcers.
I kept my head down, shoulders slumped, playing the part of the terrified corporate drone perfectly.
They didn't even look twice as I stepped into the elevator.
I bypassed the forty-second floor, overriding the panel to drop down into the subterranean server levels.
I reached the master terminal, plugging my encrypted drive into the mainframe.
I bypassed the biometric locks with a backdoor code I had secretly coded two years ago.
The files began to download, flashing rapidly across the monitor.
But as I watched the progress bar, a hidden folder caught my eye.
It was labeled "Project Penelope."
I clicked it open, my breath catching in my throat.
The folder contained thousands of surveillance photos of me, dating back to three years before I ever applied for the job.
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Larkin hadn't hired me by accident.
He had been hunting me.
