Page 35 of The Bait

Harry nodded. “Good idea.”

Asher scrolled to the end, and when there was a flash in the dark at the south side of the house, Asher paused and rewound it. It was pitch black, 10:12 p.m., and there was definitely movement at the south side of the house. Something glinted in the camera. Something metal.

Then four men dressed in all black crept into view. They dressed like navy seals, moved like it too. Professionals. Three of them had AK-74s and one had a black laptop bag slung over his shoulder.

Yuhno, Lucas, and Aranya were all still in the war room. All three of them spun to look at a security screen, only now seeing the intruders enter, as Harry and Asher could see on a screen. Yunho launched at his keyboard, the door to the war room slammed shut, and a second later, every screen went black.

On the screen of the living room, the intruders entered the house, heading straight for the door to the basement. The guy with the laptop bag pulled something out of it, stuck it to the keypad, pressed something, and the door opened.

Some kind of code breaker?

They went down the stairs, the guy with the backpack went in first.

One door done, one to go . . .

Meanwhile, in the war room, Lucas ran for the vault, coming out with handguns, and he handed one to Yunho.

“Aranya, get in there,” Lucas instructed. “Close the door. Do not open it for anyone but us. Arm yourself.”

But as she went toward it, the war room door exploded inward and the three of them spun to face it, recoiling.

Two intruders slid into the room. One of them shot Aranya right where she stood—one shot, right to the forehead, perfect aim—and before Lucas could even raise his gun, the other intruder had his rifle at Yunho’s head. “Don’t fucking move,” he warned Lucas.

There was an accent.

“Put your gun down,” he said.

Russian?

“Shoot him,” Yunho hissed.

The Russian pressed the end of his rifle to Yunho’s forehead. “Shoot me, he dies on reflex.”

“Shoot him,” Yunho yelled.

But Lucas couldn’t do it. What the Russian said was right. His finger was on the trigger. If he was shot, his muscles would retract in an instant, shooting Yunho.

The other intruder came around the desk, his gun trained on Lucas.

He spoke fast, his voice rough like he’d had a throat injury. “Put your fucking gun down,” he barked.

Lucas put the pistol on the desk and the guy slid it away, then turned his rifle around and cracked Lucas in the side of the head with it. Lucas stumbled and Yunho flinched, but the guy closest to him grabbed Yunho’s arm, twisted it up behind his back, and kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel.

Asher growled.

The third and fourth intruder came in then. While the first two zip-tied Yunho and Lucas’s hands behind their back, intruder number three went to the mainframe cabinet and took the box that had been missing.

Harry had wondered who’d taken it. The intruders, or even if Yunho had destroyed it.

Now he knew.

“They knew how to get in,” Asher murmured. “They knew exactly what to take.”

Harry nodded. “They had inside information.”

Then intruder number four went over to Yuhno and Lucas. He took out a small black box, no bigger than a pack of gum. He flipped the lid, took out a small circular pad. No bigger than a dollar coin. He whacked Yunho’s neck with it, hard. It stuck to the side of his neck and Yunho slumped forward. Lucas fought against his restraints, one of them cracked him again with the butt of his rifle. He fell back. Intruder three stuck one of those circular pads on Lucas’s neck, and he never moved.

“The fuck was that?” Harry asked.

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