THE ANCHOR BAR – 9:47 PM
The Anchor Bar stank of last night's regrets and a decade's worth of stale beer. Rain hammered against the grimy windows, with each gust of wind rattling the loose panes like shaking bones. Inside, the neon signs fizzed and hummed, casting a sickly, uneven glow that did little to disguise the scratched-up tables and the general air of weary resignation.The air hung thick, a heavy blanket woven from the scent of stale beer, damp wool, and the faint, underlying metallic tang of forgotten ambition.
Theo Cross watched the door, not through it, but in the warped reflection of a dusty mirror behind the bar. He took a slow sip of his flat, lukewarm beer, the taste as unremarkable as his surroundings. He preferred unremarkable. It meant fewer variables. He didn't need to turn when the GreyHelix physical security chief entered. The man's reflection gave him away instantly, his expensive suit too crisp for the humidity, his tactical boots echoing on the sticky floorboards with a precision that bordered on parody. Predictable.
"Mr. Cross." Michaels slid into the booth opposite Theo, his exhaustion evident even through the low light. "You're a hard man to find."
Theo swirled his bourbon, the ice clinking softly. "Yet here you are." His voice was a low rasp, cutting through the bar's drone.
A tablet hit the table between them, its screen glowing with the stark lines of the EchoJules code signature. Theo didn't blink. He'd seen this fragment before, in whispers and dark corners of the web. He'd seen the impossible.
"You've got a ghost problem," Theo stated, his voice flat, observing the chief's tense posture.
Michaels leaned in, his voice dropping. "How much do you know?"
A ghost of a smirk touched Theo's lips, quickly gone. "Enough to charge triple."
Theo tapped the tablet, zooming in on corrupted data clusters, his fingers moving with an economy born of countless hours spent in the digital abyss. "This isn't just a hack, Michael. It's a calling card."
Michael stiffened. "From who?"
"Someone who wants her to know it's personal." Theo flipped to the grainy lab photo—the one with the pixelated face. He zoomed in on it, his eyes narrowing.
"This erasure's fresh. Your hacker's insecure, they're hiding even as they flaunt."
Michaels frowned, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. "You've seen this before?"
"Same toolset as a job in Prague." Theo's jaw tightened. He let the implication hang, the unspoken weight of past shadows. Michael could assume it was freelance work, a job Theo was hired for. He wouldn't correct him.
His burner phone buzzed, a custom alert Theo had programmed moments after leaving GreyHelix HQ. The tracker he'd discreetly planted on Michaels had just pinged:
[ALERT: GREYHELIX PENTHOUSE PERIMETER ACTIVATED.]
Theo stood abruptly, tossing a handful of cash onto the scarred tabletop. "Your boss has company."
Michaels startled, scrambling to his feet. "We didn't give you her address—"
"You didn't have to." Theo tapped his phone, displaying a real-time feed of GreyHelix's internal security dashboard—accessed via the HR backdoor he'd just found, a breadcrumb leading him to the truth of the system's vulnerabilities. The feed showed the penthouse cameras, now offline. A black hole in the city's most secure building.
"Tell Ms. Grey I'll be there in twenty."
Rain dripped off Theo's leather jacket, cold and persistent, as he pressed Michaels against a dumpster in the grimy alleyway. The chief grunted, startled by Theo's sudden, raw aggression.
"One condition," Theo growled, his voice a low rumble. "I report directly to her. No board. No middlemen." He wasn't interested in corporate politics; he was interested in the core of the problem, and the woman at its center.
Michaels swallowed hard, rain streaking down his face. "Shaw will—"
"Shaw's the reason your fire alarm 'malfunctioned'." Theo released him abruptly, the chief stumbling back. "He's got a backdoor in your HR system. Check the logs for DanielS_Admin."
A beat of stunned silence. Michaels' eyes, wide and disbelieving, met Theo's. "How do you know that?"
Theo merely offered a mirthless smile. "Because unlike your ghost, I leave breadcrumbs." He pulled his collar tighter, already moving away. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Ms. Grey's midnight visitor just became my priority." He vanished into the sheets of rain, a phantom disappearing into the night.
Michael stood frozen, the cold rain irrelevant against the chill that had settled deep in his bones. DanielS_Admin. The HR backdoor.
And then, the thought of the penthouse, the offline cameras. He pulled out his phone, his fingers numb, already dialing.
Twenty minutes.
Would it be enough?