Chapter 2 - The Second Countdown“Cut the transmission!” Roman roared, grabbing Dante by the tactical vest and shoving him out of the way.
Dante’s hands danced across the keyboard, his fingers moving with frantic, desperate speed as he tried to bypass the encrypted firewall locking down the terminal. “I can't! It’s hardwired into a dead-man’s switch. If I pull the physical cable or try to force a shutdown, it triggers an instant remote detonation protocol.”
I stared at the glowing numbers ticking downward on the screen: 08:42... 08:41... 08:40...
Panic clawed at my throat, cold and sharp. My colleagues—the editors, the fact-checkers, the young interns who stayed late on rainy Tuesday nights—were sitting in that newsroom right now, completely unaware that a ghost from Roman’s underworld war was about to bring the ceiling down on their heads.
“My phone,” I blurted out, digging frantically into my coat pocket. “I have to call the city desk. I have to evacuate the building!”
Before I could dial a single digit, Roman’s hand shot out, knocking the phone straight out of my grip. It clattered across the steel floor and slid under a filing cabinet.
“Are you out of your mind?” Roman snapped, his voice dropping into a lethal, controlled register. “If you call the newsroom from an open line right now, Victor’s surveillance algorithm will flag the communication. The moment your editors pick up, the trigger signal will be sent early. He wants witnesses. He wants a spectacle.”
“I can’t just stand here and watch them die!” I screamed, my voice cracking with fury and terror as I shoved him hard against the blue wall. He didn't even budge. His solid frame absorbed the impact like a brick wall, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned right through my panic.
“Listen to me, Ava,” Roman said, his voice suddenly softening, carrying a strange, hypnotic authority. “You survived the garage because you looked at the facts instead of your fear. Do it now. Look at the data.”
I took a sharp, shuddering breath, forcing my racing mind to anchor itself. I dropped to my knees beside the desk, ignoring the pain in my shins, and stared directly at the glowing terminal screen.
“Dante,” I said, pointing a trembling finger at the complex string of routing code scrolling beneath the countdown timer. “Look at the port numbers. This isn't a standard military-grade encryption. It’s routed through local municipal fiber lines.”
Dante leaned over my shoulder, his tactical training kicking in. “City traffic control servers,” he muttered. “The old fiber ring installed during the 2014 transit expansion. Victor didn't hack into an external satellite... he hardwired the relay directly into the city’s underground subway grid beneath downtown.”
“Which means,” I continued, the pieces snapping together with terrifying clarity, “he isn't transmitting from far away. To maintain a closed-circuit fiber link without setting off national cybersecurity alarms, he has to be plugged into a physical junction box within a three-block radius of the Ledger building.”
Roman’s expression hardened into stone. He pulled his radio from his shoulder strap. “Strike team Alpha, listen up. All units converge on the Wabash subway junction beneath block 400. Victor Mallory is down in the tunnels.”
“Wait!” I shouted, grabbing Roman’s sleeve as he turned to leave. “You can’t just send an execution squad into a public transit hub. If your men corner him down there, he’ll press the remote trigger out of spite. You need a negotiator. You need someone he thinks is already out of the game.”
“No,” Roman said flatly. “The answer is absolute. You stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” I retorted, grabbing the heavy leather jacket I had dropped on a chair and pulling it on. “Because if Victor sees a squad of armed mob enforcers coming down the subway stairs, he’ll detonate the building before you clear the first turnstile. But if he sees the reporter he thinks he successfully manipulated... he’ll stop to gloat.”
May you like
Roman stared at me for three long, agonizing seconds. The tension in the room was so thick it felt tangible. Finally, he let out a low, gravelly curse, unholstered a compact, high-grade stun pistol from his belt, and shoved it into the deep interior pocket of my jacket.
“If you pull that trigger,” Roman whispered grimly, “make sure you don't miss. Because if you hesitate for even a fraction of a second, I won't be there to catch you this time.”
