Rhoda woke to a silence so absolute it felt heavy. The safe house was still bathed in shadows, the industrial chill of the warehouse kept at bay by the lingering heat of the night before. Evan was gone from the sofa, but the indentation in the velvet and the faint, ghostly scent of tobacco told her he hadn't been long.
She sat up, the silk of his jacket—which she'd pulled over herself in the night—sliding against her skin. Every muscle in her body felt the ghost of his touch, a reminder that her life had officially split into two halves: the one that worked at a bank, and the one that belonged to a ghost.
She found him in the small, stainless-steel kitchen area, silhouetted against a single hanging bulb. He was already dressed—black on black—looking as precise as the day they met. On the counter sat the silver flash drive, catching the dim light like a jagged piece of metal.
Rhoda stopped at the edge of the kitchen, her eyes fixed on that drive. It wasn't just a piece of technology; it was a tombstone for her career.
"You're staring," Evan said without turning around.
"You said you needed access. What exactly am I doing?"
Evan finally turned, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms. "The bank holds a set of private safety deposit boxes in the sub-vault. They aren't on the digital grid. They're tracked by a physical ledger—signatures only. On Thursday morning, my crew is going to move those boxes."
Rhoda's breath hitched. "Thursday? That's the audit day. Security is doubled."
"Which is why we aren't blowing the door," Evan said, his voice dropping into that low, clinical drawl. "I need you to use your head teller override. Tomorrow, during your afternoon break, you're going to enter the vault's records room. You'll plug this drive into the terminal. It will loop the security feed for exactly eleven minutes—enough time for me to enter through the service vent and swap the physical ledger pages with forgeries I've prepared."
"Forge the signatures?" Rhoda whispered, her heart slamming against her ribs. "If the auditor looks at those pages on Thursday and sees a discrepancy, I'm the first person they'll look at. I'm the one with the keys to that room."
"They won't look," Evan countered, stepping closer until his presence crowded out her fear. "The forgeries are perfect. But I need that loop, Rhoda. Without those eleven minutes of blind cameras, I'm a ghost on film. And if I don't get in there tomorrow, the crew leader is going to do it his way on Thursday. He'll use explosives. He'll take hostages. He'll kill anyone standing between him and the money in those boxes"
"Including me," she realized, the cold weight of the situation settling in her stomach.
"Yes," Evan murmured. He picked up the drive and held it out. "I have to walk you back to the edge of your world now. You have today to mentally prepare. Tomorrow at 2:00 PM, you plug this in. Thursday morning, the heist happens, and if we do this right, no one even knows anything was stolen until we're long gone."
"I'm wondering if I can actually go through with it," Rhoda admitted, her voice trembling. "I have to walk past security. I have to look my manager, Mr. Henderson, in the eye while this is in my pocket. He's known me since I was an intern, Evan. He'll see it. He'll see the guilt all over me."
Evan finally turned, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. He didn't offer a comforting word. Instead, he walked toward her, his presence closing the distance until she was forced to look up at him.
"Guilt is a luxury you can't afford right now, Rhoda," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "If you hesitate, you trip. If you trip, the crew moves in. And they won't be looking for a flash drive; they'll be looking for a way to erase everyone who can in any way compromise them."
"I know the stakes," she snapped, her eyes flashing with a mix of fear and defiance. "But I'm not like you. I don't have a switch I can just flip to turn off my conscience. Every time I think about plugging that into the vault terminal, my hands start to shake."
Evan reached out, fisting his hand in the lapel of the jacket she was wearing, pulling her just an inch closer. "Then let them shake. But do it anyway."
"You make it sound so easy," she whispered, her breath hitching as his thumb brushed the hollow of her throat.
"It's never easy the first time," he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth. "But you're forgetting one thing. You're not doing this because you're a criminal. You're doing this because you've realized that the world you thought was safe never really existed. I didn't break your life, Rhoda. I just showed you where the cracks were."
He picked up the drive and held it out between them. Rhoda stared at it, her heart slamming against her ribs. This was the moment of no return. If she took it, she was no longer the victim of a robbery. She was the architect of one.
"I can't," she breathed, even as her fingers reached for it.
"You can," he countered, his voice a seductive command. "Because you want to live. And because, deep down, you want to see if we can actually pull it off."
His hand closed over hers as she took the drive, his heat grounding her. For a long moment, they just stood there. The reluctance was still there, a cold weight in her stomach, but it was being slowly smothered by the intoxicating adrenaline of his proximity.
"If this goes wrong..." she began.
"It won't," he cut her off, his lips grazing her forehead in a gesture that was more possessive than tender. "I'm precise, remember?"
He stepped back, the professional mask sliding back into place as he checked his watch. "I'll be gone for an hour."
Rhoda looked at the drive in her palm, then slipped it into her pocket. The fire in her eyes hadn't gone out, but it had changed. It was no longer the fire of a woman fighting for her life; it was the steady, dangerous glow of a woman who had finally decided to play the game.