The screen of his laptop lit up, casting a pale blue glow over his face.

“I’ve got the network bridge,” Marcus said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “Emily, I need your administrative credentials now.”

I leaned over his shoulder, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I typed my employee identification number and the long password Trevor had written on the back of the training manual.

The screen flashed red, then green.

“Access granted,” Marcus whispered. “We are in the mirrored directory.”

A list of encrypted folders appeared on the screen, their names written in long strings of alphanumeric code.

“These files are locked behind a proprietary triple-encryption protocol,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “It would take me weeks to crack this from the outside.”

“Can you bypass it using the manager’s master key file?” Charles asked.

“Yes, but I need to locate the digital signature file first,” Marcus said, scrolling through the directories. “Trevor would have kept it in a hidden folder.”

I pointed to a directory labeled *B_Group_Transit*.

“Julian Bellamy’s company is the Bellamy Group,” I said. “Try that one.”