Sorry, sorry, sorry, for the late update. Classes have been crazy. I plan on uploading another couple chapters this weekend. Also, I've been right in the middle of midterms and it totally sucks.

Anyway, Enjoy!

Everly's POV

"Why are we here?" Ian questioned as he looked out the window at the tall building in front of us.

I tapped Sam's shoulder so he opened his eyes to look at me. I pointed to the door, letting him know we were getting out. He hadn't bothered to turn his hearing aids back on and honestly, with Ian's never-ending criticisms the entire ride there, I was wishing I had a pair to switch off myself.

The fact that he continued to leave them off didn't bother me anyway, seeing as how he could read lips very well and we could have conversations just fine without a problem. He also knew sign language, of course, but since I didn't know nearly as much as he did, it was easier for us to communicate in other ways.

Plus, I figured at this particular point in time, Sam didn't want to use sign language and tip-off Ian that he couldn't hear a damn word he'd said the entire car ride.

Ten minutes into the car ride, I'd had to deal with my phone blowing up as well as Ian's ranting. It had started with a text message from Chase. It was one word long and said simply, "Sorry." I took that to mean he hadn't been too successful in stalling Lily. Immediately following that text, my phone had begun ringing. Lily's number had flashed across the screen.

She'd tried calling at least seven more times before Sam's phone began ringing instead. Since he'd had it on vibrate, he was well aware of it and had pulled it from his pocket to show me it was her calling. I had then watched him hang up the call and text her instead. After that, he put it on silent and slipped it back in his pocket.

"We're here," I said to Ian. "because this is the scene of the crime," I said mockingly. "Is it not?"

I could feel Ian's glare but I ignored him as I stepped out of the car, walking toward the front entrance of the building. Sam and Megan followed behind and Ian was quick to follow as well. Though, Ian was quick to follow to begin informing me of everything I was doing wrong.

"Are you insane?" He questioned. "You can't just walk right in. There are cameras everywhere."

"Really?" I said sarcastically. "I hope my hair looks okay."

Megan laughed from behind me and when Ian turned to glare at her, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

As we walked into the building, we walked past the people in line to get through security, pushed through the door that read Employees Only, and walked straight for the elevators.

Ian looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel in his forehead at the, and I quote, "Complete and utter lack of stealthy and agent-like behavior." I reminded him that two of the people in his present company were not agents. Which only made the vein in his head pulse more.

I was pretty sure he really wanted to hit me. I was also sure that he wouldn't have a problem with doing just that. And considering I wanted a good excuse to be able to tell Zero as to why I murdered a fellow agent, I was willing to let him.

"That is the elevator for the CEO and executives," Ian hissed.

"Huh," I said as I made a show of leaning back to look at the sign on the wall next to the elevator. "Would you look at that?" The doors opened and I stepped right in.

Sam and Megan both followed while Ian swore before finally stepping into the elevator. He made of point of staring directly at the camera in the upper corner, hunching his head down.

"You do realize that this building is literally crawling with security, right?" He asked me. "We're going to be seen and then we're going to be caught."

"Yeah," I replied as I turned to him. "Which begs the question, how did you and your team get in?"

Ian just shrugged, his gaze darting around like a caged animal. "There were repairs going on in the building, so Agent Forty-eight and I put on a couple of their repairman uniforms and just slipped in with them. Noe-" He caught himself before he finished her name, shot a glare my way, and then continued. "Agent Ninety-nine and Agent Fifteen hung around in the lobby arguing to draw attention but they never actually went in past security, and then Agent Thirty-four and Agent Nineteen got in through the basement."

I glanced at him in annoyance. "You broke a hole in the wall? Do you have any idea what that's going to cost to fix? That basement is concrete for a reason."

Ian gave me a look of disbelief. "You're concerned for the wall? My agent went missing from this damn building."

"I'm beginning to believe that's karma for destroying my building," I muttered as I pulled my phone from my pocket and began dialing a number, ignoring the missed calls and texts from Lily about how she was going to put Angel in my bedroom for ditching the party.

Ian frowned and looked at me in utter bewilderment. "Your building?"

Yes, my building. I happened to own a very successful company. Not that I'd really had a choice in that. The company had been my mother's, and when she passed it was supposed to go to the oldest of her children. Considering when she died the oldest was only like ten, the company went to my father until her children were old enough.

My older sister Lydia should have been the one to take over the company when she turned eighteen, but there were . . . certain circumstances that prevented it. Like getting accused of murdering fellow agents. After that, my brother was next in line, but that didn't work out either considering he was dead. So, I was left to run the company. Once I had turned eighteen it had been transferred to me. Although, I was rarely around to actually run the company. Mostly I filled out paperwork between missions and left the actual running of the company to Megan. She was my assistant and had been for years and though I had previously tried to sign over the company to her, she didn't want that. We'd come to a compromise however, she was no longer my assistant in the company, she was now my partner.

The phone rang for a split second before going straight to voicemail. "Wow," I said. "You didn't pick up. I'm shocked." The elevator doors opened and I stepped out. "You send anyone else to break into any of my buildings, I'm killing them and then you." I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

I turned back to Ian. "The basement is completely locked down, how did your Agent Thirty-four and Nineteen make it out of the basement and further into the building?"

"Cut into the air vents."

"The air vents have sensors," I told him. "Which should have gone off if anything bigger than a spider was crawling through them."

"Yeah," Ian said. "but the sensors were off because the repairmen were there to fix the AC unit and needed access to the vents."

I scowled as I turned to Megan. "Is that true?"

Megan shrugged. "I've been dealing with building two. There were some issues with the electrical wiring that just appeared." She leaned over the desk outside of my office and pulled a tablet from a drawer. She unlocked it and began looking things over. "Walter never said anything to me about the AC unit when I visited last week."

"Walter, is about to be fired," I muttered. "Not only was he supposed to clear any repairs with me, or you if I'm unavailable, but every person that comes through here is supposed to have a thorough background check so these kinds of things don't happen."

Ian was watching me closely. "Why on earth would Zero send us to break into your building? And if it was just my team that broke in, what's the big deal?"

I rolled my eyes. "The problem is that it wasn't just you and your team that got in, someone else took Agent Thirty-four which means they got in the same way you did." I looked over my shoulder at him as I walked into my office. "I couldn't care less that you and your team got in, it's whoever else that got in that worries me."

I walked around my desk to sit in the chair, pulling the computer keyboard toward me as I typed in the password.

Sam took a seat in one of the chairs in front of my desk, while Ian came to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder.

I turned to Megan. "I need you to talk to the head of security, and send Walter my way if you see him. I'm going to start going through the footage and then Ian is going to walk me through what happened." I turned my attention back to Ian as Megan nodded and walked off. "Zero wants the location of a place only I know about," I told him. "and he was stupid enough to believe I kept the blueprints here. Speaking of which, I will need those blueprints you stole back. They're for the lovely vacation home I'm having built in the Bahamas."

Sam smiled and shook his head in amusement.

"Are you serious?" Ian questioned.

I shrugged. "I could be," I muttered as I pulled up the security footage and began scrolling back through the days. "What time?" I asked Ian.

"Just before noon," He said as he leaned over me, his gaze on the computer.

"And which room was she in?"

"Server room," Ian said. "But there were no cameras in there."

I shook my head. "There are," I told him. "but unfortunately for us, they don't get a good view of the room because of all the computer mainframes and cabinets. There wasn't any good place to put a camera."

I looked from the computer to Sam. He looked up at me and I tapped at my ear, silently telling him I needed him to be able to hear me. I waited as he adjusted his hearing aids.

"Can you head down to the server room, see if you can find anything?"

He nodded as he shoved to his feet. "Any clues as to what I'm looking for?"

"You're getting him involved?" Ian said.

Both Sam and I ignored him. "Not yet," I told Sam. "If I find something in the footage, I'll call you. You still have that keycard I gave you?"

I watched as he pulled the white card out of his pocket and held it up for me to see.

"Then you'll be able to get around the building just fine."

Sam's lips twitched. "Pretty sure at this point everyone in the building knows me as the boss' boyfriend and will just open the door for me."

"True. Although," I said as I pretended to ponder over his worlds. "that would require you actually talking to anyone of them."

Sam crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes. "Very funny." He looked over at Ian standing behind me. "Call me if you need help disposing of a body."

I shrugged and motioned to the big full-length windows behind me. "I got it covered, thanks."

Sam smiled widely before shaking his head and walking out of the room. Ian glared at him until he was no longer in sight, then his glare turned to me.

"You've got it covered?" He said through gritted teeth.

It would appear I was getting on his nerves.

"You think I don't?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

I shrugged as I pulled up the views of the cameras outside and inside the server room from the day Agent Thirty-four went missing. I played through the footage, watching the four different camera angles on the screen. For a second there was a quick motion in the server room, as someone-I was assuming Agent Thirty-four-dropped out of the vent above and then disappeared behind all the servers.

"Is there a better angle?" Ian questioned.

I shook my head. "No, the only other angle doesn't even hit that side of the server room." I clicked through some of the controls. "I can try to zoom in, but we won't be able to see her until she goes to climb back into the vent."

I sped up the footage and we both watched as finally, she began to climb up the servers and cabinets to get back to the vent . . . and then the screens of the cameras in the server room all went black.

"What just happened?" Ian asked me.

"Huh," I said as my fingers skimmed over the keyboard. "Clever," I finally muttered.

"Clever? What do you mean, clever?"

"If the camera had been shorted out, or shut off without proper authorization then security would've been alerted." I tapped the computer screen. "but that didn't happen here. Instead somehow whoever did this made sure the cameras were still on, still technically recording, but . . ."

"What?"

I frowned at the screen. "They somehow managed to disconnect the lens without actually touching it. The camera would still read as being on, but there wouldn't be any video. Not just that though, the cameras were working just fine today and they haven't had any maintenance which means whoever disconnected the lens, put it back on when they were out of the building." I leaned back in my chair. "Security never knew. Clever."

"You keep saying clever, but I'm not really feeling that same sentiment. We're no closer to figuring out exactly what happened and the only thing we've managed to figure out is that these people are good. Like really good."

"They're better than good," I muttered as I continued to speed up the security footage. "There's only one hacker I know that would be able to do what they've done and I know she didn't do this. Plus, they'd have to be in the building to pull this off, but with what they can do to the cameras there's no way we'll be able to ID them."

"You're not making me feel better about any of this."

"Good news is that because they tampered with the cameras room by room as they went, we'll be able to figure out how they got out of the building."

"And we might be able to see them leaving through another building's security cameras," Ian muttered.

I shrugged. "That's the hope right now. If not," I said as I pushed back from the desk. "there's still a way to ID whoever the hacker is. Each hacker has their own signature, it's just a matter of having a better hacker to find it. And I happen to know the best."

"Any luck?" Sam questioned as he came walking back into my office.

"Not so much," I replied. "Got a few ideas. How about you?"

Sam nodded slowly. "You're not going to like it," He said before pulling a knife out of his inside jacket pocket.

He held it up so I could see. The knife was styled a little differently than the usual agency throwing knives and had a small carving near the bottom. It was completely silver, reflecting the light as Sam held it up.

"That's Melanie's knife," Ian said.

Sam and I shared a look, because it wasn't the knife itself that held our attention, but rather, what had been done to it.

The tip of the knife was bent slightly. But it was bent in such a way that was familiar to me because it had happened to a few of my knives in the past. And it had happened fighting some very dangerous, very well trained, and very smart mercenaries.

I looked from the knife to Sam once more. "That isn't good," I muttered.

Sam shook his head. "No, it's not."

Sorry it took so long

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