The air in the loft shifted when Lena looked up.Not because of anything she said—she hadn't opened her mouth yet—but because the way her eyes swept the room told Marco she'd already felt it too. That hairline crack in the victory high.
The wrong note humming under the celebration.Jax didn't feel it. Or pretended not to.He slammed the bottle down on the crate they'd been using as a bar, amber liquid sloshing over his knuckles.
"To the Sterling," he crowed, raising his glass toward the stained ceiling. "Six for six. They don't know what hit 'em.""They know," Marco said.
Jax snorted, tossed back the whiskey, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was still in half of his gear, vest hanging open, tattoos gleaming with a slick sheen of sweat. He looked like a fight waiting for an excuse."Relax, professor," Jax said.
"Cameras blind, guards asleep, vault open like a drunk tourist's wallet. That was art."Across the loft, in the deepest pocket of shadow, Ghost moved.Not much. Just a slight tilt of his head, the kind of movement most people's eyes slid right past. He sat where he always sat after a job—back to the wall, one leg folded under him, the other stretched out, boots dusty, hands loosely clasped.
No one could remember ever seeing him actually choose that corner, but he always ended up there.Marco knew he'd been there the whole time, silent as a bad thought.
"Art doesn't leave mystery phones in getaway vans," Marco said.That made Jax pause."Phones?" he echoed, brow furrowing. "We sweep the van before every job. Twice."
"Three times," Lena corrected, voice low.She had a notebook open on her lap, pen resting across the spine, untouched since they'd come back.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a rough knot, stray strands curling at her temples. The city's glow from the window cast a thin silver line along her cheekbone."Whose phone?" she asked.Marco tapped the metal cash tin on the table with two fingers.
The muffled, deadened sound rolled through the room."Not ours," he said. "And it talks."Jax laughed. "What, like—'boo'?""Like it knows our job window better than we do," Marco said. "Like it knows the building. The grid.
This loft."Jax's expression tightened, the humor draining out. "You serious?"Before Marco could answer, the sirens bled through the walls again, louder now, closer. Jax's head snapped toward the window, his hand drifting to the pistol tucked into the back of his waistband."Cops?" he asked.
"Unless there's a fire convention in the neighborhood," Anya said.Her tools were packed now, cloth rolled and tied with neat precision. The tremor was gone from her fingers; they rested on her knees, ready.Lena closed the notebook without writing a single word.
"Everyone, focus," she said.The room obeyed. Even Ghost's eyes, pale in the dim light, slid to her."We don't panic on noise," Lena went on. "We verify. We prioritize. We move."Marco snapped the tin open and tilted it so they could all see.
The black phone lay inside like a dead insect. Its screen glowed with that same clinical white, the letters sharp and clean.
POLICE WILL BREACH IN 06:14
Below it, a new line.
ROOF EXIT.
TWO FLOORS UP.
Jax let out a low whistle. "Creepy."Lena rose, every motion efficient, economical. She stepped closer, arms folded, studying the device as if it were another piece on a board she'd been playing long before the rest of them sat down.
"Who saw this first?" she asked."Me," Anya said. "It was in the van. Back seat."
"And you didn't say anything until now?" There was no raised voice in Lena's question, but the steel in it cut just as deep."I thought it was his," Anya said, nodding at Marco. "He collects weird problems."
"Not ones that come with timers," Marco said.Jax's gaze ping-ponged between them. "You two can trade blame later. Right now we got—what, six minutes before friends knock?"
"Less," Ghost said.It was the first word he'd spoken since they'd come back.Everyone turned toward him.His face was as unreadable as ever, features blurred by the half-shadow, but his voice carried a calm certainty that made Lena's shoulders straighten."You've been counting?" she asked.Ghost flicked a glance at the ceiling, as if listening to something only he could hear. "Sirens are too close for six. Response vector's wrong for random patrol. They've been guided.""By who?" Jax demanded. "Bank? Feds? Who?"Ghost's eyes slid to the box. "Start there."
The timer hit 05:49.Lena didn't waste a second. "Options," she said. "Fast."
"Option one, trust the phone," Marco said. "Roof exit, two floors up, seven-minute lead. We cut across rooftops, vanish before they get a perimeter."
"Option two," Jax said, "we make a stand. They come up, they go back down in bags. We torch the place when we're done."Lena didn't bother dignifying that with more than a flat look."Option three," Anya added, "we're already boxed in and this is just someone's idea of a joke with subtitles."
"Not a joke," Ghost murmured.Lena focused on him. "What do you see?""The building opposite," he said. "Third floor. Window, left of the fire escape—small reflection. Not from the street."
"Scope?" Jax asked."Lens," Ghost corrected. "Smaller. Possibly telescopic. Someone's watching, not aiming."Marco exhaled. "So we're a show now."Lena's decision came like a snapped bone—clean, painful, necessary."Bag what we can carry on foot," she said. "Everything else stays. No arguments."Jax bristled. "We're leaving half a million on the table?"
"We're keeping our lives on the table," she said. "If you like that balance, move."He hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat, then grabbed a duffel and started stuffing cash with rough hands, grumbling under his breath.Ghost didn't move toward the money at all."Ghost," Lena said. "Route?"He stood, unfolding to his full height in a single fluid motion. "Stairwell's blind until third landing," he said. "No cameras, no line-of-sight from across the street. Roof door's old steel, internal bar. If phone's right, it's unlocked. If it's wrong, I unlock it."
"And if there's someone waiting?" Anya asked."Then we meet them first," he said simply.The timer hit 04:21.Marco shoved bearer bonds and the phone tin into the hardcase, snapping the latches shut. The weight bit into his palm.Lena's gaze caught the movement. "You're taking it."
"Information is more valuable than the cash," Marco said. "Whoever this is, they walked through our plans like they wrote them. I want a trace, a signature, anything."
"Or you're taking a listening device to our next safe place," Jax muttered."Then we don't take it there," Marco said. "We take it somewhere no one expects us to go."Lena nodded, once. "Fine. But that thing doesn't stay on us longer than it has to."The sirens outside raked closer, a jagged chorus. Red and blue light began to strobe faintly on the far wall, bleeding in through the cracked glass.
Timer: 03:52.
Lena raised her voice, cutting through it all. "Roll call. Marco, case. Anya, tools and one bag. Jax, two bags, close. Ghost—"
"Point," he said."Exactly. We move as one. If we're forced to split, Marco follows Ghost, Jax stays with Anya."Jax lifted his chin. "Since when do I babysit?"
"Since you volunteer to punch problems," Lena said. "She's the one they'll want intact if this is about locks."Anya's mouth twitched. "Flattering."Lena's eyes met Marco's last."You understand what this means," she said quietly."That I was wrong," he answered. "Six isn't enough. Someone's been counting longer than we have."Her lips pressed into a thin line, something like agreement and something like regret."We vanish after this," she said. "For real. No second debates."Jax hefted the duffels, muscles flexing. "If we live that long."
Ghost moved to the door Marco had opened minutes ago, his silhouette framed by the dim stairwell beyond. He paused just long enough to look back at Lena."On your word," he said.Lena listened—really listened—for a heartbeat. To the sirens. To the distant thump of rotors now blending into the night. To the faint, unnerving echo of metal ticking from the hardcase at Marco's side.
The timer hit 03:09."Word is go," she said.They spilled into the stairwell, one after another.Ghost first, melting into the shadows like he'd been poured there. Marco behind him, hardcase tight against his side. Anya, light on her feet despite the bag dragging at her shoulder. Jax, a wall of muscle and barely leashed violence, glancing back just once at the loft they were abandoning.
Lena last, pulling the door gently until it latched with a soft, final click.In the dark, the building's old bones creaked around them. Scuffed steps. Peeling paint.
The faint smell of rust and dust and old water.Ghost took the stairs at a steady, unhurried pace, every step measured. No rush. No panic. Just calculation.Above, two flights up, the roof exit waited.Below, somewhere far beneath their boots, another team was converging.
Jax leaned in close enough to murmur, his breath hot on Marco's ear. "If this is some fed's screwed-up idea of recruitment," he said, "I'm punching the recruiter through a window."
"If it's recruitment," Marco replied, eyes on the bobbing glow of the emergency light above them, "we're not the ones being hired."Lena heard him.Quietly, almost to herself, she said, "Then who are we?"Ghost answered without looking back."The test."