Chapter 4 - The Dead Man's Switch"Clean this up," Dominic ordered, his voice devoid of all human emotion as he stared down at the lifeless body of the woman who had helped raise him. But beneath his icy exterior, I saw the true terror: Elena was just a foot soldier. If she had the clearance to let the assassins in, who gave her the orders?
Marcus rushed into the study, holding a heavily encrypted military-grade laptop recovered from Elena’s quarters. "Boss, her terminal just initiated a dead man's switch. It's uploading everything—our financial accounts, safehouse locations, and Lily’s medical records—to an anonymous server in the Cayman Islands. We have less than ten minutes before the whole empire is exposed to our rivals, the Moretti cartel."
Dominic slammed his fist onto the desk, cracking the wood. "Can you trace it?"
"It's bouncing through a dozen proxy servers. It would take hours," Marcus sweat beading on his forehead.
I stepped forward, the pain in my chest forgotten for a fraction of a second. "Let me see."
Marcus scoffed, looking at me like I was a beggar off the street. "You're a civilian with an eviction notice, kid. This is military-grade encryption."
"I used to write firewall architecture for the Department of Defense before my health crashed and my company went under," I snapped back, snatching the laptop from Marcus's hands. "Give me the rig."
The clock was ticking. Red digits flashed across the screen: 08:42... 08:41...
My fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard. Elena’s code wasn't sophisticated; it was emotional. Traitors always leave a signature based on psychological triggers. I bypassed the proxy firewall by routing the pingback through her personal digital photo frame—the only device on her local network that wasn't encrypted.
02:15... 02:14...
"Got it," I whispered. I slammed the enter key, cutting the transmission with three seconds to spare.
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The screen flashed green. UPLOAD TERMINATED.
Dominic stared at the screen, then slowly turned his gaze toward me. The suspicion in his eyes was replaced by something much more dangerous: realization. I wasn't just a random bum from an alley. I was a weapon he had accidentally invited into his war.
