Chapter 16 - The Underground Room
The old data center looked abandoned.
Broken windows.
Rusting fence.
Graffiti across the loading dock.
But the power meter was running.
Nolan came with me.
Santos led the warehouse team.
We entered through a maintenance tunnel beneath the east wall.
The air smelled of concrete and electrical heat.
My pulse remained steady.
This felt familiar.
Not because I had been there before.
Because danger always became simpler once it stopped pretending to be family.
We reached a steel door.
Electronic lock.
Federal encryption.
Pike’s system.
Nolan bypassed it.
Inside were six server racks.
Three monitors.
Stacks of financial records.
And a wall covered with photographs.
Agents.
Judges.
Police officers.
Customs officials.
Prosecutors.
Journalists.
Some were marked paid.
Some were marked compromised.
Others were marked remove.
My photograph had a red circle around it.
Beside mine was Lily’s.
Nolan stared.
“My God.”
A sound came behind us.
The steel door slammed shut.
Then Pike’s voice filled the room.
“I told Grant you were too intelligent.”
I raised my weapon.
He appeared behind the server racks.
Gun in hand.
No jacket.
No tie.
No polished administrator.
Just a frightened criminal whose system was collapsing.
“Put it down,” I said.
He smiled.
“You first.”
Nolan aimed from my left.
Pike barely glanced at him.
“You know what’s funny, Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Your husband tried to save you at the end.”
I said nothing.
“He refused to finish what I ordered.”
“That doesn’t erase what he did.”
“Of course not.”
Pike smiled.
“But betrayal is rarely clean.”
He stepped closer to the servers.
“You betrayed Grant with your job.”
“Grant betrayed you with Vanessa.”
“Vanessa betrayed him by talking.”
“And now everyone wants to believe they were only reacting to someone else.”
I kept my sights steady.
“The difference is Lily never betrayed anyone.”
Pike’s smile disappeared.
“And every one of you used her.”
For the first time, anger flashed in his eyes.
He raised his gun slightly.
Nolan moved.
Pike fired.
The shot struck Nolan’s vest.
He fell.
I fired once.
Pike’s weapon flew from his hand.
He stumbled behind a rack.
Then emergency sprinklers exploded overhead.
Smoke filled the room.
A timer appeared on the center monitor.
05:00.
Nolan gasped.
“He rigged the servers.”
May you like
Pike had not come to protect the evidence.
He had come to burn it.
