Page 77 of Hunt Me
But I know what we’ll find.
Nothing.
The living room looks like a war zone. Furniture overturned, electronics destroyed. Her beautiful server setup—the one she built with such precision—was torn apart and scattered across the floor like electronic entrails.
The panic room door’s a twisted wreck. They used industrial cutting equipment. Professional. Fast. Military-grade operation.
They took Maya, too.
“Alexi.” Dmitri emerges from the bedroom, face grim. “You need to see this.”
I follow him to where the burner phone lies half-hidden under the couch. Still connected to my number.
They wanted me to hear.
“Fuck!” I kick the coffee table. It splinters against the wall. “FUCK!”
“We’ll find her.” Nikolai’s hand lands on my shoulder. “We have resources?—”
“Government resources.” I round on him. “They took her into federal custody. You understand what that means? No warrants. No records. No fucking trail.”
“Then we make our own trail.”
“How?” The word tears out of me. “She’s the best hacker I’ve ever seen, and they still grabbed her. What makes you think?—”
“Because you’re better.” Nikolai’s grip tightens. “And because we don’t follow their rules.”
I stare at the destruction. At the evidence of Iris fighting, struggling, and losing.
My phone vibrates again. The emergency beacon’s still transmitting, but the signal’s moving now.
South. Toward the harbor.
“They’re transporting her.” I shove past my brothers. “We move now or we lose her completely.”
We pile back into the SUV. Erik guns it before my door closes, the vehicle fishtailing as he yanks the wheel hard left.
The beacon I installed in Iris’s sneakers moves steadily south on my screen. Two vehicles, based on the signal’s pattern. Maybe three.
“Harbor district,” I say. “Private airfield.”
“They’re flying her out.” Dmitri checks his weapon. “Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. We intercept before they reach it.”
Nikolai’s already calling in favors. “I need the Seaport access roads blocked. Yes, all of them. I don’t care about permits—make it happen in five minutes or you’re done.”
The signal turns east onto Summer Street. Heavy traffic this time of night, but not heavy enough to slow them down.
“They’re moving fast.” I track their route, calculating. “Sixty, maybe seventy miles per hour. Erik, can you catch them?”
“If traffic cooperates.” He weaves between a taxi and a delivery truck, horn blaring. “Five minutes, maybe less.”
I pull up traffic cameras along their route. Grainy feeds flicker across my phone screen until I find it—two black SUVs with government plates running convoy formation.
“There.” I shove the phone toward Nikolai. “Second vehicle, rear passenger window.”
I zoom in on the lead vehicle’s driver. “Morrison’s in the front SUV. I recognize his profile from the NSA files.”
