Chapter 7 - Into the Lion’s DenThe Ravenswood plant loomed out of the fog like a concrete monolith. The SUV slipped behind a rusted corrugated steel loading bay, the automatic doors sliding open silently as Mateo keyed in an override sequence.
Inside, the facility was a masterpiece of hidden tech. Sleek server racks hummed behind rusted brick walls, and a high-end command center was set up in what used to be a foreman's office.
Emma stepped out of the car, dropping her shoes entirely and walking barefoot across the polished concrete floor. She marched straight to the central terminal, dropped her leather folder on the steel desk, and plugged her encrypted flash drive directly into the master port.
Lines of code cascaded across three massive monitors.
"Give me three minutes," Emma muttered, her fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard with the speed of a concert pianist. "If Mercer uploaded my draft to the cloud, I can trace his IP address, find his personal offshore server, and download the master key to every single transaction he made with Vance."
Damian stood behind her, watching the reflection of the glowing green code in her focused, brilliant eyes. For the first time all evening, the tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
"You're remarkably calm for someone who just survived an assassination attempt," Damian noted.
"I’m compartmentalizing," Emma shot back without looking up. "In forensic accounting, panic introduces human error. Numbers don't panic."
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Suddenly, a blaring red warning alarm echoed through the cavernous plant.
Mateo spun around, drawing his weapon. "Boss! We've got movement on the external sensors. Thermal imaging shows three teams breaching the perimeter doors."
