WRAPPED

THE decoy

By Thursday afternoon, Elliot was moving with a tense, quiet urgency.

The dark urge for a quick release had taken over completely. Because he couldn't afford to bring a new victim anywhere near his primary home where Lilly was staying, he had spent the morning preparing one of his secondary safehouses in upstate New York an abandoned farmhouse he owned under an offshore shell company.

He sat in his study, locking a small leather kit containing heavy cable ties, sedatives, and a pre-paid burner phone into his briefcase.

He was breaking his own cardinal rules: no long-term stalk, no elaborate background checks, no months of preparation. He was going to target a late-night commuter at a highway rest stop fifty miles outside the city, snatch her in the dark, and lock her away before midnight.

A quick, sloppy fix to calm his nerves and restore his sense of total dominance.

Just as he snapped the locks on his briefcase, his private cell phone buzzed on the desk.

It was an automated alert from his corporate monitoring network. A flagged audit report from his forensic accounting firm showed a sudden, high-priority data breach at one of his primary client holding accounts in New Jersey, a breach that required his immediate physical presence at the server hub to secure the paper trail.

Elliot’s eyes narrowed. Now? Tonight?

What Elliot didn't know was that the breach wasn't an accident. Three streets away, inside the surveillance van, Vance’s team had injected a spoofed security alert into his firm's private network. It was the perfect decoy crafted specifically to pull Elliot away from his house for a solid four-hour window.

Elliot stood up, staring at the phone. He hated changing plans, but his financial cover was the foundation of his entire life. If his offshore accounts were compromised, everything fell apart.

He picked up his briefcase, unlocked his study door, and stepped into the living room.

Lilly was sitting on the sofa, book in hand. She looked up as he approached, her eyes wide, soft, and completely innocent.

"Elliot?" she asked, setting her book down. "Are you going somewhere?"

Elliot walked over, setting his heavy briefcase by the front door before leaning down to cup her face in his hands. His touch was firm, possessive, and warm.

"An emergency came up with a major client in New Jersey," Elliot said smoothly, leaning down to press a long, deep kiss to her lips. "A corporate server issue. I need to drive out to their headquarters and handle it in person."

Lilly let her eyes widen with gentle disappointment. "Tonight? How long will you be gone?"

"Four hours, maybe five," Elliot whispered, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "I hate leaving you alone, especially after last night. But I need to clear this up so I can spend the entire weekend with you."

"I understand," Lilly murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning into his chest for a brief moment. "Be careful on the road, Elliot."

"I always am," Elliot smiled, kissing her forehead.

He picked up his briefcase, the kit for his impulsive hunt still resting inside it—and walked out the front door, engaging the heavy deadbolts behind him.

Lilly stood by the living room window, watching the tail lights of his dark SUV disappear down the quiet suburban street.

She waited exactly six minutes, counting every second in her head to ensure he wouldn't turn back for a forgotten phone or wallet.

At six minutes, her posture straightened. The timid, vulnerable girl vanished.

Lilly pulled her hidden satellite phone from the lining of her sweater and dialed Vance directly.

"He's on the highway," Vance's voice came through immediately, sharp and clear. "Our team is tracking his GPS module. He bit the hook on the New Jersey server alert. You have a clean four-hour window, Lilly."

"Is the regional grid clear?" Lilly asked, walking briskly toward the back pantry hidden behind the sliding barn door.

"All clear," Vance confirmed. "No remote camera alerts, no automated police sweeps. But remember: once you bypass that matte charcoal door, you're off our live feed. The subterranean concrete will cut our radio signal."

"I know," Lilly said, stopping in front of the heavy, reinforced steel door hidden behind the decorative pantry wall.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the cloned digital keycard frequency device she had prepared, along with a pair of sleek, black tactical gloves.

"The decoy bought us the time," Lilly murmured, her dark eyes reflecting the faint red glow of the biometric keypad. I'm going in