He shoots once, and a mercenary spins and falls. The second shot takes out another behind a crate, clutching his leg.
But the others push forward, relentless.
A bullet grazes the wall inches from my head. My ears ring, and my vision blurs. I grip the railing, grounding myself in cold metal.
“Harper!” Damian yells.
I charge up the stairs, right behind him. His body shields mine as the metal groans under our shifty weight whenever the stairwell narrows. We move like it’s a choreographed dance of death.
At the top, one mercenary lunges at us with a knife. Damian knocks him back with a clean hit to the head as the two of them collide hard into a wall. Their struggle is a snarl of movement—fists, elbows, boots scraping across stone.
I reach into my belt and pull the spare stun baton he strapped there earlier, flicking it on. The crackle of electricity vibrates up my arm.
Damian slams the mercenary against the ground, and I jab the baton into his ribs.
The man convulses and goes still. We don’t stop to check if he’ll get back up.
The tunnel widens into a chamber where the ceiling has partially collapsed, leaving a jagged eye to the surface. Through the tear, a sliver of daylight spills in, impossibly clean after the suffocating dark.
Snowflakes drift down like fragile ash.
“We’re close,” I breathe.
“Move,” Damian urges.
A final burst of gunfire erupts behind us, slamming into the rocks by our feet. Damian whirls, firing back, giving us the seconds we need. A boulder shifts overhead, groaning, ready to fall.
“Kiro!” Damian snaps. “Status!”
“You have thirty seconds,” Kiro breathes. “If you’re not out by then—”
He doesn’t finish.
Damian climbs first, bracing the rock edge with one hand and offering me the other. I grab him, letting his strength lift me toward the pale light.
Snow touches my cheek, startling after the suffocating heat below. We spill out onto open ground just as the tunnel mouth collapses behind us with a roar that shakes the mountain.
I lie there for a moment, gasping, staring up at a pale sky smudged with early morning clouds. The snow reflects the weak sun in millions of tiny shards, bright enough to sting.
Damian crouches beside me, one hand pressed to my shoulder.
“You’re hurt,” he heaves.
“I’m fine,” I breathe. “I just—”
Something pokes against my ribs painfully.
The drives.
I groan as I sit up. The world tilts and Damian protests at my sudden motion, but there’s only one thought in my head:I won’t let Inessa win.Ican’t.
My gloves slip as I pull out my tablet, the sides of its screen cracked. I pray as I turn it on,please, please, please turn on.
My hands tremble from the cold and adrenaline. I slot the drives into the ports, one by one. The screen lights up finally, a cascade of encrypted files appearing on the screen.
Anton’s confessions, ledgers, footage, transfers.
Proof.Not all of it but more than enough.
