My brother sabotaged the construction site of the woman I loved, leaving her unconscious behind the glass of a Chicago trauma bay. Then he walked into the hospital, smiled at me, and threatened to make sure she never woke up again. What he didn’t know was that I had finally found the one thing capable of destroying his entire criminal empire. / Chapter 9 / 20

Chapter 9 - The Vault at 4th AvenueThe 4th Avenue construction site looked like a hollowed-out concrete skeleton under the gray morning sky. Yellow police tape fluttered violently in the freezing lake wind, marking off the collapsed lower concourse.

Maya parked her sedan in an alley two blocks away, wrapping her coat tightly around her wounded ribs as she crept through a gap in the chain-link perimeter fence.

The interior of the building was pitch black, smelling of damp cement, dust, and scorched wiring. Her flashlight beam cut a pale circle through the haze as she navigated down the emergency staircase toward Sub-level 2.

B2... lower electrical panel. Derrick's instructions echoed in her mind.

She reached the basement corridor. Water dripped from exposed overhead pipes, pooling on the concrete floor. At the far end of the hallway stood a massive industrial breaker panel marked DANGER — HIGH VOLTAGE.

Maya stepped forward, using her flashlight to inspect the edges of the panel. Near the bottom left corner, hidden behind a fake conduit pipe, was a tiny silver keyhole.

She pulled the silver key from her pocket, inserted it into the lock, and turned it.

With a heavy mechanical click, the entire electrical panel swung open like a vault door, revealing a temperature-controlled server nook hidden behind the concrete wall. Inside, blue LED lights blinked in rhythm on a compact, military-grade server unit.

Maya reached into her bag, pulled out the encrypted hard drive, and connected the cable into the server's primary intake port.

The server screen lit up instantly:

WHITAKER-STERLING SECURE LINK DETECTED.

ENTER BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION OR MASTER ENCRYPTION KEY.

Maya pressed her thumb onto the hard drive's scanner.

BIOMETRIC MATCH: VANCE, MAYA.

INITIALIZING UPLOAD TO U.S. DISTRICT COURT SERVER...

PROGRESS: 1%... 4%... 8%...

"I knew you were smart, Maya," a voice resonated from the shadows behind her. "Always the top of your class."