“He’s overriding the input,” I said, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Shut it down,” Liam said, his voice sharp and low.

“If I force a hard shutdown now, the encrypted volume might corrupt,” I said. “I’ll lose the ledger.”

“We don’t have a choice, Claire.”

Liam reached across the hospital bed, his thumb hovering over the power button on the side of the chassis.

“Wait,” I gasped, grabbing his wrist. “Let me block the port.”

I tapped a series of keystrokes to kill the wireless network adapter.

The green light on the webcam continued to glow, a tiny, malevolent eye watching us in the dim light of the recovery room.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, opening the command line interface to force an immediate network disconnect.

The red dialogue box vanished.

The cursor stopped moving.

I leaned back against the stiff hospital pillows, my forehead slick with cold sweat.

“Is it gone?” Liam asked, his eyes scanning the dark corners of the room as if the intruder could materialize from the shadows.

“The connection is dead,” I whispered. “I disabled the local driver. We’re offline.”