The sedan moved through H City's backstreets like a ghost. Inside, the only light came from the blue glow of my laptop.
Lu Sheng drove with one hand. The other rested on the gear shift, inches from my knee. He didn't look at me. He didn't look at the screen. He just stared at the road, his face a mask of indifference while the city blurred past.
"Two minutes," he said.
"I'm working on it," I snapped. My fingers were flying, but the car's suspension was stiff, making every bump a risk. "The National Bank's security lead isn't an amateur. He's already trying to isolate the node I used. If he succeeds, this laptop becomes a tracking beacon."
"Then don't let him succeed."
I glanced at him. His profile was sharp, outlined by the passing streetlights. There was no sweat on his brow, no tension in his shoulders. He was perfectly calm, which only made my own heart race faster.
"I need a stable uplink," I said. "The car's mobile hot-spot is fluctuating."
Without a word, Lu Sheng reached over. His hand brushed my thigh as he grabbed a device from the center console. I flinched, pulling my legs toward the door.
He didn't acknowledge the movement. He simply plugged a satellite transceiver into my laptop's side port.
"Try now."
The signal bars maxed out. I bit my lip and dove back into the code. "The bank is requesting a secondary biometric verification. They're suspicious."
"Can you bypass it?"
"No. Not from a moving car. But I can spoof the location of the request. If I make them think the 'thief' is currently in a high-rise in Shanghai, they'll divert their physical teams there."
"Do it," Lu Sheng ordered.
I hit the final sequence. The screen flickered, then stabilized. The trace-back vanished, rerouting toward a ghost server three hundred miles away. I slumped back into the leather seat, the adrenaline finally starting to ebb.
The silence in the car grew heavy.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"A safe house outside the city."
"And then what? You take the money and dump me in a ditch?"
Lu Sheng finally turned his head. His gaze was heavy, pinning me to the seat more effectively than a seatbelt. "If I wanted you in a ditch, I wouldn't have wasted the C4 in your lobby. You're a resource, Lin Xiao. As long as you're useful, you're safe."
"Useful for what?"
"The people who hired me have a list of accounts they think are unreachable," he said, turning back to the road. "You've proven they're wrong. You're going to empty them. Every single one."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the car's air conditioning. This wasn't a rescue. This was a transition from one cage to a much larger, more expensive one.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then the contract I accepted tonight will be completed."
He reached over again, his hand lingering near mine as he adjusted the laptop's position. He wasn't touching me, but the proximity was a reminder. He was the only thing keeping the world from finding me, and he was the only thing I had to fear.
"Get some sleep," he said. "The bank will realize the Shanghai signal is a fake by morning. We need to be off the grid by then."
I closed the laptop, but I didn't close my eyes. I watched his hand on the steering wheel steady, lethal, and in total control.
I didn't trust him. But as I watched the sirens of the city fade into the distance, I realized I couldn't survive without him.