Lucas's fingers flew across the keyboard, summoning surveillance images, encrypted reports, and lingering digital footprints their attackers had left behind. Aiden craned over his shoulder, his brows knitted as lines of code and security camera footage strobed across the screen.

  "Anything?" Aiden asked.

  Lucas let out a sharp breath, his jaw clenching. "Whoever they are, they've done a good job of covering their tracks. No clear affiliations, no patterns—except." He clicked on a grainy photo of a video still. A shadowy figure, face hidden, standing just outside Aiden's office building moments before the attack.

  Aiden bristled. "Can you get it clearer?"

  Lucas attempted it, but the figure was still indistinguishable. "Damn it. Whoever this is, they knew exactly where the cameras were."

  Aiden rubbed a hand over his face. "So what now?"

  Lucas leaned back, his eyes uninformative. "Now we drop the act. We dig."

  Aiden nodded, determination curling in his chest. "Then let's discover who wants to kill me."

  Stolen story; please report.

  The chase was on.

  Lucas hunched forward, his hands clenching on the keyboard as he launched a deep search into the dark net, scouring for any hint of a contract on Aiden's life. The security feeds kept cycling, but his gaze darted between the screens and Aiden, who was standing rigid next to him.

  "This is not a hit job," Lucas whispered, his voice husky. "The person behind this has resources, time. They've been waiting for you a long time."

  Aiden's throat constricted. "Then let's flip the script. Let's tail them."

  Lucas's lips twitched with a ghost of approval. "That's exactly what I'm going to do. But when we do this, there's no going back. You prepared for that?"

  Aiden looked him in the eye, determination setting in his face. "I have to be."

  Lucas regarded him for a moment before nodding. "Then let's get to work."