Chapter 4 - The Bait and the Trap
The calm of the estate shattered instantly.
Within seconds of Leo’s warning, the grand gallery shifted from a sanctuary into a command center. Aaron stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor. The gentle, contemplative man from a moment ago vanished, replaced by the syndicate boss who commanded an army.
"Lock down the third-floor safe room," Aaron ordered, his voice cutting through the air like a blade. "Move the staff to the basement bunker. Leo, deploy the exterior sensors on sector four. I want eyes on every foot of that fence."
"Wait," Cara stood up, grabbing her white cane from where she’d leaned it against the piano leg. Her heart was racing, but her voice was steady. "If they’re here, it’s because of me. They’re tracking my old phone or my cloud footprint. I’m not hiding in a basement while your men risk their lives for me."
Aaron was already shrugging off his suit jacket, rolling up his shirt sleeves to reveal forearms corded with muscle and faint, jagged scars from past knife fights. He stepped directly in front of her, his large hands gripping her shoulders.
"You are not bait, Cara. You are a civilian," Aaron said, his tone brooking no argument. "You will go to the safe room."
"I am not a helpless civilian," she pushed back, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. "Darius used me because I’m blind, but he underestimated me. I know every server I ever managed for him. I know the backup ping frequencies. If the Ivanovs are tracking my old server signature, I can use it to pinpoint their exact location and feed false data to your security team."
Aaron stared down at her, dumbfounded by her fierce tenacity. Most women in her position would be cowering in a corner. Cara Higgins was ready to wage digital warfare.
A slow, grim smile touched the corner of Aaron’s mouth. "Stubborn woman."
"Brilliant woman," she corrected sharply. "Now, are you going to lock me away like a piece of fragile china, or are you going to let me help protect my home?"
Ten minutes later, Cara was seated at a high-tech tactical terminal in Aaron’s private office, flanked by three of his top tech specialists. Her fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard with blistering speed, her ears tuned to the specialized screen-reader audio feeding into her wireless earbud at triple speed.
"They're using a localized radio relay," Cara announced, her face illuminated by the harsh blue glow of the monitors. "Darius must have given them my old backup router frequency. They're pinging the guest wing from a van parked three blocks down on the ridge."
Aaron leaned over her shoulder, his massive frame shielding her from the rest of the room. He watched her hands manipulate the code, routing a counter-virus straight into the relay.
"Can you trace it back to them?" Aaron asked, his breath warm against her neck.
"I’m not just tracing it," Cara said with a sharp, triumphant grin. "I’m locking their comms, looping their GPS coordinates, and sending a fake distress signal straight to the Chicago PD precinct three blocks away. Let’s see how they like being hunted by the cops while trespassing on Costello turf."
Click.
She hit enter.
Across the monitors, a cascade of encrypted windows collapsed into red error screens. From outside the perimeter came the sudden, sharp wail of police sirens converging on the ridge, followed by the frantic shouting of men scrambling to escape in a hurry.
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The attack had been neutralized before it even breached the gates.
Aaron straightened up, looking down at her with a mixture of awe and fierce, protective hunger. He had brought her in to save her from the wolves. He hadn't realized she was a wolf herself.
