Vivian froze.
Blake listened—body tense, not afraid. Calculating.
“Back,” he mouthed.
They retreated into the corridor just as the stairwell door slammed open behind them.
“Go,” Blake whispered.
They ran.
A voice followed—smooth, almost bored.
“Leaving so soon?”
Vivian’s pulse knifed through her ribs. That voice. The same cold amusement she’d heard at the lighthouse, and in her room.
They reached the dim service hallway. The elevator chimed.
Too soft. Too polite. Wrong.
The doors slid open.
A man in hospital scrubs stood inside. Tall. Still. Familiar.
Vivian’s blood iced.
The lighthouse. The fall. The ink circling his wrist. The same man that had stabbed Blake.
He smiled—not surprised.
Not triumphant.
Expectant.
“You should’ve stayed unconscious,” he said. Not taunting—just matter-of-fact. “It would’ve kept them off your trail.”
Blake raised his weapon. “Hands where I can see them.”
The man lifted them slowly, palms open—not in surrender, but in restraint.
“If I wanted either of you dead,” he said calmly, “the stairwell would have finished it. Or the parking lot. Or her room. But that’s not my plan.”
Vivian felt the floor tilt. “You shoved me.”
“I stopped you,” he corrected, voice even. “You were about to signal a surveillance node you didn’t know existed. Laurel Tide was watching. If they realized you’d seen the casing, you wouldn’t have left the lighthouse alive.”
“And why stab him?”
The man let out a low, exasperated breath. “It was a surface level slash, and I needed to make it look good, because they were watching. Now, if you’re done with the questions, I’d like to keep you alive, but you’re making it increasingly difficult.”
Blake didn’t lower the gun—but his breath changed, a small shift of doubt cutting through certainty.
“So what do you want?” Blake asked.
“To keep you alive long enough to finish what you started.” He stepped back, giving space instead of closing it. “Take this elevator to three. Back stairs to the main floor. Emergency exit to the east lot.”
“And your team?” Blake asked.
