Ch.19: The Heist

We moved through the house like ghosts. Higgins, despite her bulk, was surprisingly light on her feet, fueled by the adrenaline of potential wealth. I was fueled by something colder: survival.

The study was dark, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering through the rain-streaked windows. The room smelled of old leather and expensive secrets.

"Where is it?" Higgins hissed, her eyes darting around the shadows.

"Behind the painting," I whispered, pointing to the massive oil canvas of a storm-tossed ship above the fireplace.

Higgins moved the painting. It swung out on hidden hinges, revealing the safe. It was a sleek, matte-black square set flush into the wall. No keypad. No dial.

Just a single glass lens. A retinal scanner.

"You said you knew the combination!" Higgins snarled, grabbing my arm. "There aren't any numbers!"

"I never said it had numbers," I said, pulling away. "I said I knew how to open it."

I pulled my phone from my pocket. During my time in the lab, I hadn't just been prepping blood bags. I had been watching Thorne. I had been waiting for him to make a mistake.

And three days ago, he had. He had fallen asleep at his desk in the lab, exhausted after a particularly grueling session with Isabella. His eyes had been open—a side effect of the stimulants he took.

I tapped the screen, bringing up the photo. It was a high-resolution macro shot of Julian Thorne's right eye. The iris was a landscape of icy blue ridges and valleys.

"Hold this," I said, handing the phone to Higgins.

"A picture?" she scoffed. "You think a picture is going to fool a military-grade scanner?"

"It's not just a picture," I said, adjusting the brightness to max. "It's an infrared capture. I used the lab's diagnostic camera."

I hoped I was right. The hacker who sold me the Mara Kovic ID had mentioned that older biometric models could be tricked by high-res IR images if the contrast was perfect. It was a long shot. But it was the only shot we had.

"Hold it steady," I commanded. "Right in front of the lens."

Higgins's hands were shaking. "If this alarm goes off..."

"Just do it."

She held the phone up. The scanner emitted a red beam, sweeping across the image of the eye.

*Beep. Beep.*

Red light.

"It didn't work!" Higgins hissed, panic rising in her voice.

"Closer," I said. "And tilt it. The angle is wrong."

She moved the phone. The red beam swept again.

*Beep. Beep.*

"We're going to get caught," she whimpered. "I'm leaving."

"No!" I grabbed her wrist, steadying it. "One more time."

I adjusted the angle myself, lining up the digital pupil with the scanner's sensor. I held my breath.

The beam swept.

*Click. Whirrrrr.*

The light turned green. The heavy bolts retracted with a sound like a gunshot in the silent room.

Higgins gasped. She shoved me aside and yanked the door open.

"Come to mama," she whispered, reaching inside.

Her hand froze.

The safe wasn't empty. But it wasn't full of cash. There were no stacks of bills. No velvet bags of diamonds.

It was filled with files. Rows and rows of black binders, each labeled with a year and a code name.

Higgins let out a sound of pure despair. She started pulling the binders out, throwing them on the floor, searching frantically for a hidden compartment.

"Where is it?" she shrieked, forgetting to whisper. "Where's the money?"

"Quiet!" I hissed.

I picked up one of the binders she had discarded. It was labeled *PROJECT CHRONOS: PHASE 1*.

I opened it.

It wasn't a ledger. It was a medical log. Photos of children. Dozens of them. Some were infants. Some were toddlers. All of them had the same pale skin, the same dark circles under their eyes.

And all of them were marked with a red stamp: *TERMINATED.*

I turned the page.

*Subject: A-04. Cause of Death: Systemic Organ Failure due to Excessive Extraction.*

I turned another page.

*Subject: B-12. Cause of Death: Marrow Collapse.*

My stomach churned. These weren't patients. They were prototypes. Daisy wasn't the first. She was just the latest in a long line of sacrificial lambs.

"He lied," I whispered. "He said he was saving them. He's killing them."

Higgins wasn't listening. She was tearing the back panel of the safe out, her fingernails scraping against the steel.

"Money!" she sobbed. "There has to be money!"

I grabbed another binder. *PROJECT CHRONOS: FINANCIALS.*

I opened it. It wasn't cash, but it was money. Bank transfers. Shell companies. Payments from pharmaceutical giants. Payments from...

I froze.

The names on the list. Senators. Tech moguls. A royal family member.

They weren't funding research. They were buying the product.

"Higgins, look," I said, shoving the binder at her. "This is better than cash. This is leverage. This is blackmail material on half the Fortune 500."

She looked at the page, her eyes scanning the numbers. Millions. Billions.

"We can sell this," she breathed.

"No," I said, taking the binder back. "We can use this to burn him to the ground."

I looked at the files scattered on the floor. The dead children. The stolen lives. The blood money.

The safe opened. But there was no money inside. Only files labeled 'PROJECT CHRONOS'.