Eighteen minutes remained on the countdown, and my lips still burned from Bram's mouth. "We need high-bandwidth hardlines," I said, tucking the screaming handset away while my pulse pounded in my ears. I refused to chart the tachycardia. I refused to assign it an operational metric. "The remote wipe is firing from the central core at the summit ballroom. He's doing it during the centennial gala." Tansy dropped an armload of black polyester onto the flour-dusted prep table. "Good thing I lied on my catering credentials! You're looking at the head pastry chef and three auxiliary waitstaff for the grand ballroom." Silvan adjusted his collar, his expression dry as chalk. "I spent eight years avoiding that banquet hall. Now I am infiltrating it in an apron." "You'll survive, Silvan," Bram muttered, strapping a brass-studded utility belt beneath a tailored black vest. He caught my eye across the grease-slicked tarp. His gaze lingered on my mouth, unhurried, defying the red digits burning a hole through my blazer. "Stick to the plan, Voss?" "The plan has ninety-four points of failure," I stated. "We will exploit ninety-two of them." Ten minutes later, the opulent glass atrium of the hundredth anniversary gala smelled of roasted shallots, spun sugar, and old money. Chandeliers hung like frozen stalactites over five hundred socialites in silk and tailored wool. On the mezzanine, a seven-tier champagne tower shimmered under amber spotlights. Tansy waddled past the ice sculpture, balancing a silver tray stacked with crystal flutes. She shot me a maniacal wink. Into the hollow stem of the bottom-tier magnums, she had injected fifty milliliters of cold-pressed senna pod extract—her signature 'gut-check reduction.' "Hydrate, gentlemen," Tansy chirped, shoving flutes into the hands of three senior audit directors. "It brings out the notes of graft." Silvan slipped toward the audio-visual riser near the back, blending with the union technicians. I guided Bram toward the teleprompter feed tucked behind the velvet curtains flanking the main dais. "Twelve minutes," Bram murmured, his shoulder brushing mine. The heat of him cut through the chill of the air conditioning. "You're sweating." "Thermal regulation is an involuntary biological response to ambient temperature," I lied, sliding a thumb drive into the auxiliary input of the staging terminal. "Right. Has nothing to do with the fact that you kissed me back like a drowning climber grabbing a ledge." "Bram. Focus on the perimeter." "Focused," he said softly, but his fingers grazed my wrist as he took up position by the curtain seam. Fanfare erupted. The room quieted. The chief executive stepped onto the polished stage, his silver hair gleaming, his posture that of an emperor addressing his serfs. He tapped the chrome microphone. "A century of vision," he began, looking toward the glass teleprompter monitors positioned at stage left and right. "A century of steadfast stewardship, built upon the integrity of the men and women who—" I hit the execute key. The scrolling tribute vanished. In its place, giant green monospaced text flooded the monitors: *OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS / PROJECT TITAN / BVI HOLDING CORP #8841-B*. The man froze. His mouth formed a hollow syllable. He blinked, expecting the words to revert, but my keystrokes locked the display. "—who understood that profit is... is..." the executive faltered. I fed the signal directly to the sixty-foot projection array behind his head. The LED wall flashed bright, illuminating the ballroom in cold, unforgiving starkness. His signature appeared across thirty separate shell-company routing slips. Column by column, six hundred million credits of embezzled pension funds scrolled past his bewildered silhouette. A gasping murmur rippled across the floor. Flashbulbs went off in a chaotic barrage. "What is the meaning of this?" an investor shouted from the front row. Before he could stammer an excuse, three board members clutching their champagne suddenly went white, dropped their glasses, and bolted for the restrooms in a desperate, undignified scramble, clutching their stomachs. His head snapped toward the stage wing. His eyes found me standing over the auxiliary console. His patrician mask rotted away into pure feral rage. "Voss!" he roared, completely ignoring the live microphones. He abandoned the podium, tearing through the velvet drapes with the momentum of a charging bull. The master purge terminal in his hand was flashing red: *PURGE ABORTED - EXTERNAL OVERRIDE 91%*. "Shut it down!" the executive lunged straight for my throat, fingers hooked like talons, desperate to rip the flash drive from the port. I braced my feet, refusing to yield the console. A black blur slammed into him. Bram met the CEO mid-stride with a low, bone-jarring shoulder check that sent them both crashing across the staging platform. Cables tore free. Metal trusses rattled. The older man, heavier and fueled by pure panic, rolled violently and swung an iron elbow into Bram’s ribs with a sickening crack. Bram grunted, air tearing from his lungs, but he locked his arms around his opponent's torso, pinning the older man to the floorboards. "Upload the data, Marenka!" Bram yelled, his voice raw with strain. "Don't look at me! Push it through!" "Bram—" "Push it through!" My fingers flew over the keyboard. The transfer bar crept forward: *96%... 97%...* The CEO twisted beneath Bram's grip like an eel. Snarling, the CEO slipped a hand inside the left lapel of his silk tuxedo. The satin tore. Metal clicked. Hendryk didn't pull out a flash drive or a corporate token. He pulled out a snub-nosed matte-black revolver, shoving the muzzle directly against Bram's sternum as the progress bar ticked to 99%. "Let go of me," Hendryk hissed, his finger tightening on the trigger, "or his lungs end up on the glass."

The Hundredth Anniversary Heist