Vanessa stared at the detonator in her hand until her fingers ached.
It was smaller than she expected. Heavy enough to feel real. Red LED. A row of tiny, malicious lights like a heartbeat.
She felt the room shift. The lights were gone. Emergency glow painted everything green and grainy. The vault looked like a scene in infrared. Shapes and shadows.
Then the speaker clicked back on, voice calm and clinical.
"Walk."
Vanessa did not hesitate. You didn't argue with a voice like that. Not with a bank rigged for a show.
She moved slowly. Her palm tightened around the plasti.
Half a breath into her first step, the voice cut in again — sharper this time.
"No—no. Look behind you."
She did.
At first she thought it was a mannequin. The place was dark. Her eyes hunted for the impossible. Then a red dot—low, precise—painted the air. A glint of metal. A muzzle. The man holding the gun stood farther back in the mezzanine gloom. He looked like a silhouette painted with spite.
