The subterranean parking garage of the Sterling Plaza was a cavern of cold, gray concrete and echoing silence. It was a place designed exclusively for the city’s elite, a secure vault where millionaires left their luxury vehicles while attending high-stakes meetings in the glass towers above.

Jax dragged Victoria into a glass-walled conference room and locked the heavy doors. The guards were pounding on the glass, preparing to breach.

"We have eight minutes," Victoria breathed heavily, clutching the briefcase to her chest. "The stairs are blocked. We're trapped on fifty."

"No, we're not," Jax said, pulling a USB drive from his pocket. He rushed to the conference room's primary terminal. "Apex Tower’s server room is on this floor. If I can override the building's lockdown protocol, I can reactivate the VIP elevator."

"How long?" she demanded.

"Two minutes," Jax typed furiously. Code cascaded across the massive presentation screen. "But Julian is overriding me from the penthouse. He's locking the digital signatures. Even if you get to the boardroom, he's going to wipe the OmniCorp servers before you can sign."

Victoria’s eyes widened. "The contracts are physical. But the wire transfer of the seventy million is digital. If he wipes the servers, the money doesn't move. The deal defaults."

"Exactly," Jax said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "I need a distraction. I need him to stop looking at his firewall for sixty seconds so I can upload a virus I wrote three years ago."

Victoria looked at the heavy landline phone on the conference table. She picked it up and dialed the penthouse direct line.