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72 hours. Not one minute more. Temple of the Jaguar God. Calakmul. Come alone or she dies.

Brock showed Elena the message.

“That’s the old Mayan temple,” she said. “The cartel took it over years ago. It’s their headquarters.”

“I know it,” Brock said grimly. “Nate and I ran reconnaissance on it three years ago. It’s a fortress. But it’s not impenetrable. And now we have three days to plan this properly.”

He pulled out his phone and started making calls. “Eden? We’ve got seventy-two hours. That gives us time to do this right… Yeah, I know Atticus is in Somalia. He should be back in two days, can meet us in Mexico on day three… Perfect.”

He hung up and turned to Elena. “Here’s the timeline. Today—day one—we create the flash drive, brief the team, fly to Miami and get the passports. Tomorrow—day two—we fly to Cancun, check into a resort as honeymooners, and start building our cover. Day three—Atticus arrives from Somalia, we do final reconnaissance on the temple, plan the extraction. Day four—we meet with the cartel and get Marguerite out.”

“Four days,” Elena said. “Marguerite has to survive four more days.”

“She will,” Brock said firmly. “They need you compliant. They won’t risk hurting her before the exchange. And we’re going to use every minute of the time we have to make sure we get her out safely.”

Elena nodded, trying to push down the fear. “Okay. What’s first?”

“First, you finish eating. Then we go to the tech vault and you create that flash drive. After that, we pack for a honeymoon in Mexico.” He paused, his expression softening. “How are you holding up?”

Elena looked down at her hands. “I’m scared. For her. For what we’re about to do. But I’m also…” She struggled to find the words. “I’m grateful. That I’m not doing this alone.”

Brock reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “You’re not alone anymore, Elena. I meant what I said last night. We’re in this together.”

She turned her hand over, lacing her fingers with his. The contact felt foreign but not frightening. Safe.

“I know,” she said. “And I’m trying to let that mean something.”

“That’s all I need,” Brock said. “Now eat up. We’ve got a niece to save and a cartel to destroy.”

Elena managed a small smile and picked up her fork. For the first time since she could remember, she felt like maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t facing her demons alone.

Two hours later, Elena stood outside the tech vault on sublevel three, her hand trembling slightly as she placed her palm on the biometric scanner. Brock stood beside her, a reassuring presence.

The heavy door clicked and swung open with a hiss of pressurized air, the sound like a tomb unsealing. Inside, banks of servers hummed, their lights blinking in rhythmic patterns—green for normal operation, amber for processing, red for errors that never came because Cal maintained his systems with obsessive precision.

The temperature dropped ten degrees the moment they crossed the threshold, the vault kept at a constant fifty-five degrees to protect the sensitive electronics. The air smelled metallic, tinged with ozone from all the processing power. Cables ran in neat bundles along the walls and ceiling, color coded and labeled, a spider’s web of connectivity that linked Dynamis to operations across the globe. The servers themselves were matte black towers with unmarked faces, holding secrets worth billions and protected by encryption that would take decades to crack.

“Over here,” Elena said, moving to a workstation in the far corner. “This is the isolated server where Cal keeps his most dangerous creations.”

She logged in with her credentials, then pulled up a secondary authentication screen. “I’m going to need Willa’s access card for this part. The cannibal virus requires dual authentication.”

“Already got it,” Brock said, handing her the card he’d borrowed earlier.

Elena’s fingers flew across the keyboard, navigating through layers of security. Finally, a prompt appeared—AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.

She hesitated, her finger hovering over the enter key.

“You okay?” Brock asked.

“Once I do this, there’s no going back,” Elena said. “This virus…Cal designed it as a last resort. Once it’s deployed, it’s unstoppable.”

“Good,” Brock said. “That’s exactly what we need.”

Elena nodded and pressed enter.

The screen filled with code, scrolling rapidly as the virus loaded. Elena inserted a blank flash drive into the USB port and began the transfer process.

“Now I need to create a shell of legitimate-looking data,” she explained as she worked. “It has to pass their initial inspection. They’ll test a sample before they plug it into their mainframe.”