He never knew which, and the window burst inward as they clattered down the iron stairs. Marin carried Lily for one landing, then handed her to Everett when her bare foot slipped. They dropped into the alley, ran past trash bins and sleeping pigeons, cut through the rear of a bakery where the owner yelled until he saw Everett's face, and simply pointed toward the front. They emerged into morning traffic smelling of wet bread and diesel.
Everett did not go to his truck. He saw a black sedan idling half a block from it. Instead, he led them into a bus already sighing at the curb, pushed crumpled bills into the fare box, and pulled Marin and Lily down behind a cluster of nurses heading home from night shift. Marin sat rigid beside the window, silver gown hidden beneath Everett's old raincoat, her bare feet tucked under the seat.
Lily pressed against her side, breathing fast. Without thinking, Marin wrapped an arm around the child, not delicately, not for show, but with fierce possession. Everett saw it and looked away because tenderness at the wrong moment could undo him. The bus lurched forward.
Chicago slid past in gray streaks. For 10 minutes, no one spoke. Then Lily whispered, "Are the bad men mad because of my necklace?" Everett knelt in the aisle in front of her, ignoring the curious glance of a nurse nearby. "They're mad because they did something wrong and don't want anyone to know."
"Did Mama know?" The question hit him harder than Corbin's threat. Everett took Lily's hands. They were cold. "I think Mama may have been trying to protect us."
Lily's eyes filled but did not spill. "Then we should protect her back." Marin turned her face toward the window and Everett saw her blink hard. When she looked at him again, her voice had steadied into the tone that had made rooms full of older men go silent. "I know where Corbin keeps what he can't risk on company servers."
Everett frowned. "You're sure?" "My father suspected him before he died. He didn't have proof, but he told me Corbin had a habit of storing leverage near physical assets he controlled personally. Not headquarters, not cloud systems, somewhere ugly, practical, overlooked."
"That narrows it down to half the Midwest for a logistics company." "A records depot in Cicero. Officially, it stores expired shipping manifests and insurance files. Unofficially, my father once told me it was the only place in the company where Corbin never let IT rotate staff."
Everett's mind, trained by years of audits and years of survival, began arranging the pieces. "Air-gapped server, likely. Security? Private cameras?" "Yes."
"Access?" "Mine may still work unless he's already locked it." Everett looked at Lily. "We can't bring her into that."
Marin followed his gaze. "Do you have anyone you trust?" The answer should have been no. Poverty narrowed trust because asking for help too often turned friendship into debt.