The buzzing from the hardshell case was a serrated edge, cutting through the heavy silence of the Grand Central locker alcove. Elara's heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic rhythm that matched the vibration beneath her fingertips. Beside her, Silas was a coiled spring, his jaw so tight Elara feared it might shatter.
"Elara, don't," Silas warned, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "He's a master of psychological warfare. That phone isn't a lifeline; it's a detonator. If you answer it, you're giving him the coordinates to your mind."
Elara ignored him. She flipped the latches on the case. It opened with a soft hiss of airtight seals. Inside, nestled in custom-cut foam, sat the hardware wallet—a sleek, silver device that looked like a high-end USB drive—and a burner phone with a glowing screen.
The caller ID was blank.
Elara picked it up. Her thumb hovered over the green icon. She thought of the "Red Hook Incident" Julian had mentioned. She thought of the photos of her on Silas's wall. She was tired of being the only person in the room without all the pieces of the puzzle.
She swiped. She pressed the phone to her ear.
"Speak," Elara commanded, her voice surprisingly steady despite the tremors in her legs.
There was a moment of static, the hollow sound of a long-distance connection. Then, a voice came through. It wasn't the melodic, arrogant baritone of Julian Vane. It was a woman's voice—cool, refined, and sharp enough to draw blood.
"You always did have a flair for the dramatic, Elara. Julian certainly knew how to pick them. Though I suppose 'picking' is a generous word for what he did to you."
Elara's breath hitched. She knew that voice. She had heard it across mahogany boardrooms and over expensive crystal glasses during the Foundation's peak. "Sophia?"
Silas stiffened at the name, his eyes narrowing as he stepped closer, trying to catch the audio.
"In the flesh. Or as close to it as you'll get from Singapore," Sophia Vane replied. There was a faint clinking sound on the other end—ice against glass. "I imagine my brother told you I was the one who sent the man in the charcoal suit. He probably told you I was liquidating his empire and that you were the only witness left to silence."
"Weren't you?" Elara asked, her eyes darting to Silas, then back to the silver key in the case.
Sophia let out a short, humorless laugh. "Julian is a romantic, Elara. He lives in a world of architects and anchors. I live in a world of mathematics. I don't need to kill you to win. I already own the Foundation. What I don't own is the encryption key my brother stole before the Feds walked him out of his penthouse. The key you are currently holding."
"He said you were framing me for the Singapore transfers," Elara said.
"Julian is the one framing you, darling," Sophia countered, her tone turning chillingly clinical. "That hardware wallet in your hand? It's not just a ledger. It's a trail. The moment that device is plugged into a computer with an active internet connection, it will broadcast a series of pre-scheduled transactions. Transactions that originate from your gallery's IP address. By the time the FBI finishes their breakfast, you won't be a witness anymore. You'll be the mastermind who finished Julian's work while he was behind bars."
Elara felt the world tilt. She looked at the silver drive. It felt like a live wire.
"Why are you telling me this?" Elara whispered. "If you want the key, why warn me?"
"Because Julian has a backup plan that involves a blackout and a body count," Sophia said. "And because Silas Thorne is not the 'fallen hero' he pretends to be. Ask him about his sister, Elara. Ask him what happened to her in Red Hook three years ago. Ask him if he's here to save you, or if he's here to trade your life for the man who killed her."
Elara pulled the phone away from her ear, her head spinning. She looked at Silas. He wasn't looking at the phone anymore. He was looking at her, and for the first time, she saw a flicker of something that wasn't anger. It was grief. Deep, jagged, and unhealed.
"What happened in Red Hook, Silas?" Elara asked, her voice trembling. "What happened to your sister?"
Silas didn't answer immediately. He looked around the empty station, the shadows deepening in the corners of the hall. "She was an intern at the Foundation," he said, his voice sounding like it was being dragged over gravel. "She found a discrepancy in the Singapore ledgers. She called me. I told her to stay put, that I was coming to get her."
He stepped closer, his shadow falling over Elara like a shroud. "I was five minutes late. By the time I got to the warehouse in Red Hook, Julian's 'cleaners' were already gone. They didn't just kill her, Elara. They erased her. They made it look like she ran away with the money she'd discovered."
"And Sophia?" Elara asked.
"Sophia signed the checks that paid for the cleanup," Silas hissed.
"She says you're going to trade me," Elara said, holding the phone out like a weapon. "She says you're going to hand me over to her in exchange for Julian's head."
Silas looked at the phone, then at the hardware wallet in the case. "I'm going to do what I have to do to make sure a Vane never breathes free air again. If that makes me the villain in your story, Elara, then so be it. But if you trust Sophia, you're already dead."
The phone in Elara's hand chirped. A text message appeared on the screen from the same blank ID:
"The Hounds are already in the terminal, Elara. Look at the North balcony. You have ten seconds to decide who you want to die with."
Elara looked up. High above the marble floor, on the sweeping North Balcony, three shadows were moving. They weren't police. They weren't security. They were moving with the synchronized, lethal grace of a hunting pack.
The man in the charcoal suit hadn't been alone.
"Silas," Elara breathed, pointing toward the balcony.
Silas didn't waste a second. He grabbed Elara by the waist and hauled her behind a heavy marble pillar just as a silenced round shattered the glass of the locker next to her head.
"Locker 402 was a trap," Silas growled, pulling a handgun from his coat. "Julian didn't send you here to get a key. He sent you here to be the bait that brought Sophia's men and me into the same room."
Elara hugged the hardshell case to her chest, the cold marble pressing against her back. Julian was three hundred miles away in a cage, yet he had orchestrated a massacre in the heart of New York.
"What do we do?" she asked, the smell of gunpowder and old stone filling her nose.
Silas looked at her, his eyes hard and desperate. "We survive. And then we go to Singapore."