Chapter 423:
“Shh, just checking the alarm,” she lied smoothly.
She pressed his thumb against the scanner.
Beep. Click.
The safe door swung open.
“Good boy,” she whispered. She let go of him, and he slid down the wall, curling up on the floor, already back asleep.
Inside lay the external hard drive marked BACKUP – DO NOT TOUCH.
Tiffany plugged Felix’s black device into the drive. A small red light blinked, then turned steady orange.
Copying… 0%
She stared at the progress bar. It moved agonizingly slowly. 1%… 10%…
A high-security medical facility in Upper Manhattan. Aurora sat in a wheelchair by the window, an IV line still running into her arm. The room was sterile, filled with the hum of expensive medical equipment. Julian lay in the bed next to hers, awake but pale.
“I have a bad feeling,” Julian said, his voice weak. “About the company.”
“Which one?” Aurora asked, checking her tablet. “Sterling Industries is locked down. Cloud has the firewalls at one hundred percent.”
“Not the mainframe,” Julian said. “The subsidiary. Sterling’s division. It feels… quiet.”
Aurora checked the server logs. “Sterling is an idiot, but his system is air-gapped. Unless someone physically accesses the drive, it’s safe.”
“Physically,” Julian repeated. “Like a Trojan horse.”
M𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝓹𝓉𝓮𝓇𝓈 𝑎𝑡 g𝓪𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝓈 dot con
85%…
Sterling snorted in his sleep. He shifted, his leg kicking out and hitting the desk leg.
Tiffany froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She held her breath, staring at him. If he woke up now, if he saw her…
He mumbled something about “The Duchess” and settled back into silence.
95%…
99%…
100%. Copy Complete.
The light turned green.
Tiffany yanked the device out. She put the hard drive back exactly where it was. She closed the safe. She wiped the scanner with her sleeve to remove her prints—and his. She replaced the painting.
She looked at Sterling on the floor. She couldn’t drag him back to the couch. She grabbed a blanket from the chair and threw it over him where he lay.
“Sleep tight,” she whispered.
She went to the bathroom and texted Felix.
Got it. Meeting you now.
She grabbed her coat and slipped out into the night. She had the cloning device in her purse. It felt heavier than gold.
.
.
.