Chapter 9 Breaking In
The Blackwood Industries building looked different at two in the morning, with most of the lights off and shadows pooling in every corner.
Sage sat in the passenger seat of Jenny’s car that Riley was now driving and stared up at the tower trying to remember the access codes Kade had made her memorize. Just in case, he said. In case of emergency.
She wondered if he expected the emergency to be her breaking into his building to find evidence against his Beta.
“Security changes shift at three,” Riley said. He was twenty-two and had only been in the pack for a year but he worked as building security before that. “The night crew is smaller. Two guys on the main floor. One doing rounds on each floor. We have maybe thirty minutes before someone checks the executive level.”
“Then we move faster.” Sage opened the car door. “Stay close to me. If we get caught, run and make sure you don’t get caught.”
They crossed the empty street and approached the side entrance.
Sage entered the access code and the door clicked open. So far Kade had not changed the codes. That was either trust or he had been too distracted to think about it.
Inside the building was quiet, except for the hum of climate control. Emergency lights cast everything in dim red. They found the service stairs and started climbing.
Twenty floors. Sage’s legs were burning by the tenth.
She had not eaten properly in days and the climb was harder than it should have been. Riley kept having to slow down for her.
They reached the executive floor and Sage cracked the stairwell door open. Empty hallway. Offices on both sides. Marcus’s office was at the end near Kade’s.
They moved quietly down the carpet. Sage’s heart was hammering so hard she thought it might break through her ribs. If they got caught it was over. Marcus would kill them both and claim they were trying to sabotage Kade.
Marcus’s office door was locked. Riley tried his old security badge but it did not work.
“Now what?” he whispered.
Sage looked at the wooden door. It looked very solid and expensive. “Can you break it?”
“I can try.” Riley grabbed the handle and pulled. His muscles strained. The wood around the lock started to crack into smaller pieces. One more hard pull and the door burst open with a crack that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet building.
They froze, waited, there was no alarm. No footsteps running toward them.
“Thirty minutes,” Riley reminded her.
They went inside. Marcus’s office was neat and organized, a desk with computer, filing cabinets, bookshelf. Expensive art on the walls.
Sage went to the desk while Riley checked the filing cabinets. She opened drawers finding normal office supplies, pens, paper, business cards. Nothing useful.
The computer was password protected. She tried a few obvious ones but none worked.
“Anything?” she asked Riley.
“Business files, contracts. Nothing about hunters or pack stuff.” He closed the last drawer. “Maybe he keeps it somewhere else.”
Sage stood back and looked at the office. If she were hiding something, where would she put it? Not in obvious places. Somewhere that looked normal but was not.
Her eyes went to the painting on the wall behind the desk. It was a little tilted, not perfectly straight.
She walked over and tried to straighten it. The painting swung aside revealing a wall safe.
“Found something,” she said.
Riley came over. “Can you open it?”
“I don’t know but I will try.” Sage pulled her medical bag from her shoulder. She carried lock picks in it because she learned to pick locks as a teenager when she and her father were running and sometimes they needed to get into places fast.
She knelt in front of the safe and started working. It was harder than a regular lock. More complicated.
Her hands were shaking from hunger and fear and that made it worse.
Time crawled. Riley watched the door.
Sage focused on the tiny sounds of the lock mechanism, feeling for the right positions.
Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty.
“We need to go,” Riley said. “Security’s going to check this floor soon.”
“Almost there.” Sage adjusted the pick, she felt something click, she tried again. Another click. “Come on, come on.”