The moment I tapped four times against the marble floor, New York’s most feared mafia boss ordered his men to lock down the ballroom.

Dante exploded out from behind the marble pillar with terrifying speed, firing three precise shots down the left corridor. The sharp cracks of his Sig Sauer echoed deafeningly through the stone passage, accompanied by shouts of surprise and the heavy thud of bodies hitting the floor.

“Now, Sophie! Go!” Dante roared over the din of gunfire.

I didn’t hesitate. I pushed off the pillar and sprinted across the open corridor toward the heavy steel door of the subterranean server room. My cheap shoes slapped frantically against the concrete floor. From the shadowed corner of the hallway, a surviving operative in tactical gear spun around, his submachine gun tracking toward my chest.

Before he could pull the trigger, a single gunshot rang out from behind me. Dante’s bullet caught the operative squarely in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending his weapon clattering across the floor.

I reached the heavy steel door, fumbling with shaking fingers to slide Dante’s service key into the electronic override slot. The red LED light flickered angrily.

*Access Denied.*

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath, my hands trembling violently.

I looked down at the keypad. It wasn't a standard numerical code. It was a rhythmic pulse input—a security measure Dante had installed, requiring a specific sequence of taps to verify identity.

My mind flashed back to the Pierre Hotel, to Danny sitting on the floor tapping out rhythms, to the locket, to the way patterns governed our entire lives.

*Once. Twice. Three times. Four.*

I pressed the override button in the exact four-beat rhythm Danny used when he was overwhelmed, the rhythm I had used to calm Luca in the ballroom.

*Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.*

The LED light flickered from angry red to a brilliant, steady green.

The heavy steel door hissed open, sliding smoothly into the stone wall.

I dove inside, slamming the manual backup lever down to lock the door from the inside just as heavy boots pounded against the hallway floor outside. Muffled shouts and the sound of fists slamming against the reinforced steel echoed through the chamber, but the door held firm.

I turned around, gasping for breath, and looked out across the massive rows of server racks humming softly in the chilled air of the subterranean vault. On the central monitoring terminal, a flashing amber warning banner displayed across the screen:

*WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED EXTERNAL DATA SCRAPE IN PROGRESS. 84% COMPLETE.*

The federal operatives hadn’t just sent men to wipe the drives physically—they had planted a remote malware payload that was draining the decrypted master ledger straight to an offshore server in Zurich. If the download finished, every encrypted file, every offshore account number, and every corrupt politician’s name would be erased from the local database forever.

I rushed to the main console, my eyes scanning the complex web of command lines scrolling down the screen. There was a physical master kill switch located beneath the console—a heavy red lever protected by a plastic safety cover.

I didn't think twice. I smashed my fist through the plastic cover, grabbed the red lever, and pulled it down with all my weight.

The server racks instantly went dark. The low, ominous hum died away into absolute silence, replaced only by the faint dripping of a condensation pipe in the corner of the room.

On the screen, the download progress bar froze dead at 91%.