The guard rotation ran four minutes early.
Her own notation. Her own handwriting in the map's margin, logged two nights ago and left there, because four minutes felt like drift, like human error, like the kind of noise that didn't warrant follow-up when she had bigger threads to pull.
Alessio had been counting on that.
The early rotation cleared the east corridor eighteen minutes ahead of schedule. That was the signal. Not a breach. Not a test. A green light. The corridor empty, the cameras positioned exactly where she'd been feeding them data for forty-eight hours, and the north access point ready to open.
The access point was eleven years old. Three years before Vincent became boss. Built into the foundation of the house before anyone who currently lived in it had any authority over the walls.
Alessio had known about it longer than that.
