Max exhaled sharply beside her. "He played us."
She didn't respond. What was there to say? Graves had let them come to him, let them believe they had the upper hand. And then he vanished, leaving only destruction in his wake. The worst part wasn't even the escape, it was the way he had spoken to her.
*I counted on you.*
The words gnawed at her, a splinter she couldn't remove. He had known she would come. He had wanted her here.
Max crouched beside a fallen beam, shifting debris. "This place was wired to blow before we even set foot inside."
Alice knelt beside him, brushing aside ash and dust. The ground was littered with fragments of metal and broken concrete, but something else caught her eye. A small, blackened device half-buried beneath the rubble. She picked it up carefully.
A data chip.
She exchanged a glance with Max. "This wasn't destroyed in the blast."
Max frowned. "You think he left it for us?"