She looked up at him, her gaze tracing the dark, bruised circles under his eyes.
"You vanished for three hours. The corporate accounts are untouched. Whatever you did out there... did you get your leverage?"
Ryan looked back out the glass.
"I bought a wrecking ball," Ryan said quietly, his voice vibrating against the window pane. "Now we just have to wait for it to swing."
His burner phone vibrated in his inner pocket. A single, short pulse.
Ryan didn't pull it out. He knew exactly what it was.
The clock was ticking down to midnight.
-----
Next Day.
The digital clock on the corner of Ryan's monitor flipped to 8:14 PM.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, the Manhattan skyline was a glittering grid of amber and white.
Inside the forty-second floor, the ambient noise had drained away, leaving only the aggressive, rhythmic hum of the servers and the faint clicking of mechanical keyboards from the engineering bunker.
