I pulled my laptop bag closer to my chest.

Adrian drove in silence, his hands steady on the steering wheel.

He occasionally glanced at the rearview mirror, checking for anyone following us.

“You did well tonight,” Adrian said quietly.

“I was terrified,” I admitted.

“Courage isn’t the absence of fear, Emily,” he said.

We reached the loop, the streets mostly empty in the early morning hours.

The towering glass facade of Romano Holdings looked dark, except for the top three floors which were always lit.

Adrian parked in the private underground garage.

We took the private elevator straight to the executive penthouse suite.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open to the silent, dark offices.

I walked quickly to my desk, sitting down and booting up my terminal.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, entering the secure VPN that bypassed standard firewalls.

I opened the international banking interface.

I entered the sixteen-digit routing number I had memorized from Marcus’s laptop.

The screen loaded slowly, a small circle spinning in the center of the display.

“Is it working?” Adrian asked, standing behind my chair.