But they don’t hurt. They don’t cut. Because the man saying them is nothing to me anymore.
The tears stop.
I straighten my spine, dropping my arms to my sides.
“I have the Ledger,” I say, my voice dropping to a lethal, flat calm. I reach into my pocket and pull out the small sleek metal flash drive, holding it up so the ambient light catches its casing. “I have the routing numbers. I have the audio of your phone call with Kirill. It’s backed up on secure servers.”
My father’s eyes lock onto the drive in my hand. “I highly doubt that,” he says smoothly. “You don’t have the technical expertise to bypass encryption, and you said so yourself. The hitman is dead, and the Russians took care of his estate.”
“Give me the drive,” he demands, holding out his manicured hand. “Give it to me right now, and we’ll handle this quietly.”
“Or what?” I ask, stepping to the side of the desk, keeping the wood between us. “You’ll kill me yourself?”
My father looks at me. There’s no love in his eyes. There’s no hesitation. There’s only cold, political calculation.
He lowers his hand and turns to the cleaner on his left.
“She’s clearly suffering from severe psychological trauma following her abduction,” my father says, his voice effortlessly taking on a practiced, mournful tone. “The stress of the horrific ordeal simply became too much for her to bear.”
He looks back at me, delivering the sentence.
“Make it look like a tragic suicide. Put the gun in her hand.”
The cleaner nods. He steps forward, his hand reaching inside his cheap suit jacket, his fingers wrapping around the grip of a suppressed weapon.
I don’t hesitate. I reach behind my back. My fingers close around the grip. I rip the gun from my waistband, thrusting thebarrel forward as I snap the safety down with a click. I aim at the center of the cleaner’s chest.
The cleaner freezes, his hand still tucked inside his suit jacket.
My father flinches, taking a half-step back.
“Take your hand off your weapon,” I command. My voice doesn’t waver.
The cleaner stares at me. He’s waiting for signs of a panic—waiting for my wrists to wobble or my breath to hitch. When I don’t give him either, his eyes narrow.
“Ms. Hale,” the cleaner says, his tone calm. He speaks to me like I am a jumper on a ledge. “You’re holding a firearm. If you pull that trigger, you cross a line you can’t come back from. You arrange flowers. You don’t shoot people.”
“Take your hand out of your jacket,” I repeat.
“She’s bluffing,” my father snaps, though he’s backed into the edge of the desk. “Shoot her! Put a bullet in her head!”
The cleaner doesn’t move. “Put it down, kid. You’ll just hit my vest. Then I shoot you, and it hurts a lot more.”
“You aren’t wearing ceramic plates,” I say. I can almost hear Cassian’s voice in my ear. “You’re wearing soft Kevlar to hide it under that suit. I’m holding nine-millimeter hollow points. At eight feet, they don’t just bruise. They expand. They’ll pulp your lungs before you clear your holster.”
The cleaner’s jaw tightens. He realizes I’m not only holding a gun—I know how it works.
“What is he paying you?” I ask, the front sight locked on his chest. “A hundred thousand?”
“It’s just a job, Ms. Hale,” he says. He shifts his weight to his back foot, preparing to move.
“It’s a suicide mission,” I counter. I don’t look at my father; I keep my eyes on the man I’m about to kill. “My father burns his assets. He used Elias, then he killed him. He used the Russians,then he left them to die. Look at him. He ordered the execution of his own daughter to protect a campaign. Do you really think he’s going to let you walk away as the only loose end?”
The cleaner pauses.
“Once you pull that trigger and I’m dead, you’re the only witness left,” I say, my voice steady. “You become a liability. He’ll have your partner shoot you in the back of the head while you’re rolling me into the rug.”
The second cleaner, standing near the door, shifts. His eyes dart toward my father. They are corrupt, but they aren’t stupid.
