Elias stared at her for a long, silent moment. Then, he gestured toward the door. "After you."
The walk to the town hall was agonizingly slow. The snow was falling harder now, muffling their footsteps. Walter walked closely beside Tessa, his arm trembling against hers. Neither of them spoke. Elias walked two paces behind them, a silent, lethal shadow.
They reached the municipal building. The front doors were locked, but Tessa had kept a master key from her time conducting the audit. She unlocked the heavy glass doors and led them up the dark, echoing stairwell to the Mayor's suite.
The office was exactly as the FBI had left it—stripped bare of files, the desk empty, the velvet blinds drawn tight.
"Do it," Elias commanded, standing by the door.
Tessa opened the laptop and connected it to the Ethernet port in the wall. She booted up the machine. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, opening terminal windows and executing lines of code.
She wasn't hacking the municipal trust. That was impossible, even for her.
Instead, she was building a mirror.
"The funds are currently locked in a secure holding node," Tessa said aloud, narrating her actions to keep Elias calm. "I am bypassing the authentication protocols using my old credentials."
She pulled up the master ledger the syndicate had sent her. She found the specific Cayman Islands routing numbers Elias wanted the money sent to.
"Initiating the transfer," Tessa said.
On the screen, a progress bar appeared. It was a fake graphic she had coded in the car on the way down, designed to look exactly like a federal banking interface.
Elias stepped closer, watching the bar fill up. 10%. 30%. 60%.
"You are very efficient," Elias murmured. "It is a rare quality."
"I told you I could do it," Tessa said, her heart thumping against her ribs. She needed just a few more seconds.
The progress bar hit 100%.
"Transfer complete," Tessa announced. "The five million is back in your Cayman accounts. It's washed."
Elias looked at the screen, then looked at Tessa. He slowly reached under his coat. "Thank you, Ms. Grady. You have been most helpful. Unfortunately, loose ends are poor for business."
"Before you shoot me," Tessa said, her voice eerily calm, "you might want to check the confirmation code on that transfer."
Elias paused, his hand gripping the butt of his pistol. He looked back at the screen.
Underneath the Transfer Complete notification, a secondary terminal window had opened. It was a live feed from the dark web.
Tessa hadn't sent the five million dollars. She didn't have it. Instead, she had taken the master ledger Elias had given her—the one containing the account numbers, routing sequences, and hidden identities of the entire global syndicate—and she had just broadcast it to every major international law enforcement agency, investigative journalism outlet, and rival cartel network on the dark web.
"What did you do?" Elias hissed, the cultured veneer finally shattering.
"I un-balanced the ledger," Tessa said fiercely. "I just published your entire financial network. The FBI isn't just looking at Apex Holdings anymore. The CIA, Interpol, and half the criminal underworld are currently downloading your boss's bank accounts."
Elias ripped his pistol from its holster, leveling the silencer at Tessa’s head.
Before he could pull the trigger, the large plate-glass window behind the Mayor's desk exploded inward.
The deafening crash of shattered glass was immediately followed by the concussive roar of a flashbang grenade. A blinding white light filled the office, accompanied by a sound so loud it scrambled the senses.
Tessa hit the floor, dragging Walter down with her, covering her ears as the room dissolved into chaos.
Elias staggered backward, blinded and deafened, firing blindly into the ceiling.
The door to the office was kicked off its hinges. Tactical agents swarmed into the room, their weapon lasers cutting through the smoke and dust.
"Drop the weapon! Drop it now!"