The Glass Legacy

The Kill Switch

The heavy oak door splintered violently, crashing against the interior wall of the conference room with the force of a bomb going off.

Richard Hayes dropped his burner phone, his face draining of all color. He was standing over a sleek Thorne Tech laptop, his trembling hand hovering over the keyboard. On the screen, a red progress bar was rapidly filling up.

UPLOAD SEQUENCE INITIATED: 82%...

"Hello, Richard," Leo said. His voice wasn't a shout. It was a freezing, dead-calm whisper that absolutely paralyzed the older executive.

"Mr. Thorne—Leo, I—" Hayes stammered, backing away from the table, his hands raised in terror. "Silas made me do it! He threatened my pension, my family—"

"Save your breath," Leo cut him off, stepping into the room like the grim reaper in a tailored tuxedo.

Aria didn't even look at Hayes. Her electric green eyes were entirely locked on the laptop screen.

88%... 91%...

If that bar hit one hundred percent, the virus would bypass their mirror-grid and hit the live servers. She didn't wait for Leo's command. Aria bolted past him, the heavy emerald silk of her gown swishing around her legs as she lunged for the conference table.

"No!" Hayes panicked, suddenly realizing his entire life was over if she stopped that upload. Driven by pure desperation, the older man lunged forward to slam the laptop shut before Aria could reach it.

He didn't even get close.

Leo moved with terrifying, blinding speed. He caught Hayes by the throat with one massive hand, completely lifting the executive off his feet and slamming him brutally against the expensive wallpaper. Hayes choked, his legs kicking uselessly in the air.

"If you even breathe in her direction," Leo growled, the muscles in his thick forearm bulging as he tightened his grip, "I will break your neck right here."

Aria hit the keyboard.

94%... 96%...

Her fingers flew across the keys in a frantic, brilliant blur. She didn't try to cancel the upload—Hayes had locked it with an administrative override. Instead, she bypassed the firewall, cracked his local encryption, and forcibly rerouted the destination pathway.

98%... 99%...

Aria slammed the ENTER key.

The screen flashed a blinding, violent red, paused for a terrifying millisecond, and then turned a calm, glowing blue.

UPLOAD COMPLETE. REROUTED TO LOCAL HOST 000.00.

Aria let out a ragged, shaking breath, bracing her hands flat against the table. She had done it. She had successfully trapped Silas Sterling's lethal virus inside the isolated dummy server. The Thorne Tech global grid was completely safe.

"It's done," Aria whispered, her chest heaving against the silk of her dress. She looked up at Leo. "I isolated the payload. Silas just blew his one and only shot."

Leo didn't smile. His ice-blue eyes were burning with a lethal mixture of adrenaline, pride, and absolute possession. He unceremoniously dropped Hayes, who collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.

At that exact moment, Marcus stepped through the shattered doorway, two massive security operatives right behind him.

"Marcus," Leo commanded, not taking his eyes off Aria. "Get this piece of trash out of my sight. Strip his credentials, freeze his accounts, and lock him in the basement of Thorne Tower until I decide what to do with him."

"Yes, sir," Marcus nodded. The operatives dragged the sobbing executive out of the room.

The heavy silence of the empty conference room rushed back in.

Leo crossed the room in two long strides. He didn't look at the laptop. He looked only at Aria. He grabbed her waist, lifting her effortlessly off the ground and setting her down on the edge of the polished mahogany conference table. She gasped as he stepped immediately between her thighs, his towering frame caging her against the table.

"You," Leo breathed, his voice a gravelly, vibrating rasp as his hands tangled into her hair, "are the most brilliant, magnificent creature I have ever met."

Aria’s heart hammered against her ribs. The adrenaline of the hack was perfectly colliding with the suffocating physical tension between them. "I told you I could beat him, Thorne."

"You did," Leo murmured, his lips hovering mere millimeters from hers, his gaze dark and hungry. "But Silas is going to realize his virus failed in exactly five minutes. When he does, he won't use code anymore. He will use bullets. And we need to be gone before he does."