Chapter 20 · Midnight Instead of Nine

Chapter 20: Midnight Instead of Nine

Luca's phone goes off against the steel shelf like a gunshot in the vault room, and I flinch before I can stop myself.

"Say that again." His voice drops flat. Not loud. Flat is worse.

I can't hear the other end, just a tinny scramble of words, but I watch his jaw lock, watch the muscle there jump once, twice.

"Nine a.m. was the deal," he says. "Who moved it?"

More scrambling. He looks at me over the phone, and something in his eyes goes colder than the recycled air blasting down from the vents.

"Midnight," he says, to me, not the phone. "Your father's lawyer just moved the press conference to midnight. Tonight."

The cabinet behind him hums low, that dead industrial sound that means no signal gets in or out down here. Six hours. Maybe less by the time we climb back up to daylight and traffic.

"That's not enough time," I say, and my voice still comes out wrong after a year of not using it, rough at the edges like gravel under a tire. "The uncut file—"

"Is still locked in a cabinet you won't give me the number to."