CHAPTER 5: THE BLUEPRINT OF BETRAYAL
The rain in Oakhaven had turned from a drizzle into a relentless downpour, drumming against the roof of the rusted van the girls had stolen from a junkyard two hours prior. Inside, the air was cold and smelled of damp upholstery.
"Luke's schedule is pathetic," Ivy muttered, her face illuminated by the harsh blue light of her tablet. "He's a creature of habit. Every morning at 8:15, he leaves his gated community in the North Hills, grabs a sugar-free latte from the same shop, and spends twelve hours at the Lutanza Infrastructure Hub. He hasn't changed his routine in ten years."
"That's the confidence of a man who thinks his secrets are buried under a billion dollars of Lutanza stock," Beatrix said from the driver's seat. She was wearing an oversized grease-stained jumpsuit, her blonde hair tucked tightly under a baseball cap. "He doesn't realize the ghosts are coming to breakfast."
Orissa sat in the back, checking the tension on a pair of high-tensile zip ties. She was quiet, her natural brown hair messy and unstyled. She was thinking about Luke. She remembered him from the summer barbecues before the fire the "fun uncle" who used to draw buildings on napkins for her and Ivy.
"He was my father's best friend," Ivy said, her voice dropping an octave as she stared at Luke's digital file. "My dad trusted him with the blueprints for the original lab. And when the fire happened, Luke was the only one who didn't get arrested. He got a promotion instead."
"He didn't just get a promotion, Ivy," Orissa said softly. "He became the architect of Sam's cage. If we want to know how Sam is tracking us, Luke is the one who holds the key."
"How do we play this?" Beatrix asked, looking in the rearview mirror at Orissa. "We aren't Isabella Vane and Sasha Volkov today. Luke knows our faces. If he sees us, he'll call Sam before we can even say hello."
"We don't let him see us," Orissa said. "At least, not as ourselves. Ivy, did you get the bypass for his home security?"
"Done," Ivy replied, a dark smirk playing on her lips. "I used the same encryption logic my father taught both of us. Luke never bothered to update it. He's arrogant. He thinks no one left alive knows his 'language.'"
North Hills – 11:00 PM
The North Hills were silent, the kind of silence that only comes with extreme wealth and high-end security patrols. The girls moved through the shadows of the manicured hedges like ink in water.
They weren't wearing velvet or silk. They were in tactical black, their movements synchronized and silent. This was the "Low-Stakes" side of their work the gritty, methodical breaking and entering that didn't make the headlines but made the missions possible.
They bypassed the perimeter lasers in seconds. Ivy's fingers worked the keypad of the back door with a familiarity that was heartbreaking she was using the same "family" codes her uncle had never bothered to change.
The house was a glass-and-steel monstrosity, cold and devoid of life. Inside, the air-conditioned silence was broken only by the hum of a high-end server in the basement.
"Upstairs," Orissa whispered. "He's in the study."
They moved up the glass staircase. Through the cracked door of the office, they saw him. Luke sat behind a massive oak desk, surrounded by holographic blueprints of Oakhaven. He looked older, his hair thinner, his eyes weary as he stared at a map of the city's underground fiber-optic network.
Orissa signaled to Beatrix.
Beatrix stepped into the room first, the barrel of her suppressed pistol catching the light. Luke didn't even look up at first. "I told you, I'll have the Summit schematics ready by..."
He stopped. He looked up, his eyes widening as he saw the masked figure in black.
"Who are you?" Luke gasped, his hand darting toward a panic button under the desk.
"Don't," Beatrix said, her voice cold. "Ivy has already disabled the alarm. You're pushing a piece of plastic, Luke."
Orissa stepped into the light then, pulling down her neck gaiter. She didn't say a word. She just watched him.
Luke's face went from pale to ghostly white. He began to shake, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts. "O... Orissa? No. You're dead. You all died in the foster fire in Jersey."
"We're better at surviving fires than you are at starting them, Luke," a third voice said.
Ivy stepped into the room, her mask still on, but her eyes the Vance eyes burning with a hatred that could melt steel. She walked to the desk and slammed her laptop down next to his blueprints.
"Hello, Uncle," Ivy whispered.
Luke collapsed back into his chair, his hands covering his face. "Sam... Sam said you were taken care of. He said he was protecting you."
Orissa leaned over the desk, her face inches from his. "Protecting us? We've been living in the gutters of the world for ten years while you built his empire. Now, you're going to tell us everything. How is he tracking us? How did he find the Cinder-Box?"
Luke looked up, tears streaming down his face. "He's not tracking you through the tech, Orissa. The tech is just the cover."
"Then what is it?" Beatrix demanded, pressing the gun closer.
Luke swallowed hard, his gaze shifting between the three girls. "He's tracking the silver. The coins you leave behind... they aren't just marks. They're 'Tags.' Every coin you've ever touched is coated in a rare, radioactive isotope that only Lutanza's satellites can see. He's not following your faces. He's following your signature."
Orissa felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. Every time they "liquidated" a CEO, they left a piece of Sam's tracker behind. They had been giving him their location every single time they won.
"And there's more," Luke whispered, his voice trembling. "He didn't find the Cinder-Box because of the coins. He found it because he's been paying the property taxes on it for ten years. He knew you'd go there because he wanted you to go there."
"Why?" Orissa asked, her heart hammering.
Luke looked her directly in the eye, and for the first time, she saw pity in his expression. "Because he's not trying to catch you, Orissa. He's trying to see if you'll come home. The Summit... it isn't a business meeting. It's a wedding."