The room seemed to tilt.
Jack’s mind leaped instantly to Annie underground in the vault corridors, to narrow passages and limited exits, to her standing over Eleanor’s box when violence found her again.
“I’m going,” he said, already turning toward the door.
Martinez caught his arm. “Detective, you are not cleared—”
“Get your people moving,” Jack cut in. “Coordinate with local law enforcement. Do whatever the book tells you to do. But I’m not staying here.”
“You’re wounded,” Martinez insisted. “And walking into an unknown, hostile situation without tactical support.”
“I’m walking into a place where Annie Whitaker is in immediate danger,” Jack said, his voice low and immovable. “That’s the only calculation that matters.”
His phone vibrated again.
Come alone, Detective. No agents. No teams. No heroics. Just you. And maybe this ends without more blood.
Jack stared at the screen, recognizing the construction of the message as clearly as any crime scene. Isolation. Control. A funnel into their chosen ground.
A trap.
Also, an opening.
“Martinez,” he said, checking the magazine in his weapon and gathering what he could manage one-handed. “Tell Chen what just came through. Tell her Sarah Mitchell is inside the bank, and she wants me there. Personally.”
“This is suicide,” Martinez said.
“No,” Jack replied quietly. “This is what Eleanor Blackwood never got. Someone walking toward the threat instead of away from it.”
Outside, he slid into his vehicle, the engine’s vibration traveling straight through his injured shoulder, but he welcomed the pain. It kept him anchored. Focused.
The drive took twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of sirens bleeding into the air from every direction. Twelve minutes of rehearsing corridors, vault levels, stairwells, hostage response scenarios. Twelve minutes of thinking about Eleanor hidingtruth in darkness, about Annie refusing to run from it, about how close he had come to losing her to fear before danger ever touched them.
By the time he reached the bank, emergency vehicles crowded the street. Law enforcement had established a perimeter, but the building itself had gone blind. Its windows were blacked out from within, sealing whatever was happening behind brick and glass.
His phone rang.
He answered.
“Detective Calloway,” Sarah Mitchell said, her voice smooth, controlled, almost polite. “You can see we’re holding your people in a rather inconvenient position.”
“What do you want, Sarah?”
“A trade,” she said. “You come inside. Alone. Unarmed. And I release Agent Chen, Annie Whitaker, and the employees who had the misfortune of being present today.”
“And if I don’t.”
“Then we begin removing lives from the equation.” Her voice cooled. “You have ten minutes.”
The call ended.
Jack lowered the phone slowly and looked at the bank’s sealed front doors, at the hidden war behind them, at the woman he loved somewhere inside.
The choice wasn’t impossible—it was inevitable. Some truths demanded witnesses, others demanded defenders, and some demanded someone willing to step into the dark and hold the line. Jack moved toward the entrance.
Chapter 16
Annie pressed herself against the cold marble wall of the bank vault, her heart hammering as chaos erupted somewhere above them. Gunfire had broken out only minutes after they finished documenting Eleanor’s evidence, sharp cracks echoing through the floors overhead, followed by shouting voices and the shrill wail of security alarms.
