Chapter 21 · Red Line Breached

The alarm didn't beep. It shrieked.

Strobe red washed over the raw concrete walls, died, then ripped back across Dante's face. My ears were ringing. My fingers were still twisted into the linen of his shirt, and beneath my knuckles, his pulse hit like a hammer.

On the bank of security monitors, black SUVs hit the bridge.

Six. Eight. Ten.

I stopped counting.

"That's my uncle," I whispered. The words tasted like ash. "That's Salvatore."

"I know."

"How the hell are they on the bridge, Dante? You said this whole place was locked down."

He didn't answer. His gaze cut past my shoulder to the terminal behind us. The monitor I'd been sweating over for two solid hours.

A single amber banner pulsed in the bottom right corner:

*REMOTE ACCESS FLAGGED. ORIGIN: INTERNAL.*

My stomach dropped straight into the concrete.

"No," I breathed.

"Lucia."

"No. I used the dead cipher. I wiped the routing logs. I did it exactly like—"

"Like someone trained by Moretti accountants." His jaw tightened until the bone showed white through his skin. "Salvatore wrote half that root code, *tesoro*. He's been staring at that back door for seven years. You just rattled the knob.