SHADOW QUEEN: THE RISE OF JENNA BROOKS.Chapter 5: The Heist
576 Words
The vault was buried deep beneath an abandoned shipping terminal on the outskirts of the city—camouflaged under rust, dust, and digital illusions. Rumor had it the black market kept its most damning secrets here: crypto wallets, intel dossiers, off-the-book transactions. And among them, Jenna hoped, a link—proof connecting Mira Kale to Vargo’s criminal web.
She’d assembled a small team for the job—mercenaries, hackers, and thrill-chasers. People who didn’t ask questions as long as the pay was right. Leading them was Jenna. Focused. Relentless. Ruthless when she needed to be.
Among the crew was a familiar face—Kade, a wiry ex-slicer with a silver tongue and eyes that never quite told the truth. But he’d fought beside Jenna in the pits once. She remembered pulling him out of a bloodbath years ago. She thought that counted for something.
It didn’t.
The night of the heist was a blur of motion.
Skylights shattered. Smoke grenades hissed. The vault’s entry protocols fried under the pressure of her team’s tech prodigy, a girl who called herself Null and spoke only in code.
Jenna moved like fire—efficient, burning, leaving no room for hesitation. Her blades flashed in the dark. She dropped guards with clinical precision, her body a weapon sharpened by years of pain.
Everything was going perfectly.
Until it wasn’t.
Just as she reached the vault’s core—a reinforced hexagonal chamber pulsing with soft blue light—Jenna felt the barrel of a gun press against her spine.
Kade.
“I’m sorry, Scrap Queen,” he whispered. “But this score’s too big. Vargo made me a better offer.”
The betrayal was like déjà vu. A wound reopened.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said, her voice low. “You think Vargo honors deals?”
“He doesn’t need to,” Kade replied. “He just needs to erase threats. Like you.”
He pulled the trigger—
Click.
The gun jammed.
Jenna spun, disarmed him, and drove a knee into his gut. Kade collapsed with a curse. She didn’t kill him. Not because he didn’t deserve it—but because she didn’t have time.
Alarms blared. Red lights flashed. Reinforcements were coming.
She dove into the vault, bypassed the last lock with a brute-force code Bones taught her years ago, and grabbed the only thing that looked important: a sleek, encrypted drive tucked inside a titanium briefcase.
She ran.
Bullets chased her through the smoke-filled corridors. Her breath burned in her lungs, her legs ached, and blood dripped from a graze on her arm—but she didn’t stop.
She crashed through an emergency exit, leaped from the second story, and rolled hard on the gravel outside.
The van was already running. Null opened the door, wide-eyed. “Where’s the rest of the team?”
“Gone,” Jenna said. “Trust is extinct.”
As the van peeled away into the night, Jenna stared at the drive clutched in her hands.
Whatever was inside, it had better be worth it.
Because now, she was all in.
- Writer
