“Move,” he says, not harsh but firm and absolute, and my body obeys on instinct because his voice is the kind that means danger is already inside the building.
He hauls me to the office he’s been using all week—the unused one a couple doors down, the one I’ve had to ignore while my thoughts circle it all day, every day.
He shoves the door open and pulls me inside.
The second we’re through, he slams it behind us and locks it. The sound of the lock falling into place makes my skin prickle.
“Antonio,” I say, voice shaking now. “What’s going on?”
He doesn’t look at me as he moves. He crosses to the desk, plants both hands on it, and climbs up.
“Breach,” he says.
The word punches through me.
“A breach by who?” I demand. “How?”
He reaches up, fingers already at the seam of a ceiling tile.
“Bellandi,” he says.
My blood turns to ice.
“What— How do you know that?” My mind races, trying to catch up. “Wait, what about the rest of them? David. Eleanor. Malcolm—”
I turn toward the door, instinct screaming at me to go find them, to warn them, to drag them into a room and lock it anddo something.
But Antonio is off the desk in an instant, fast as a snap, and his hand clamps around my arm again, tight enough to stop me, not tight enough to bruise.
“Elsa.” His voice drops, and it’s the most terrifying thing. “You’re the one they want.”
I freeze.
His eyes lock on mine, and the intensity there makes my stomach drop.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he says.
I stare at him, my throat closing.
“No,” I whisper. “No, I can’t just— I can’t leave them here like sitting ducks waiting to be picked off.”
His jaw flexes. “We have other people watching them,” he says. “They’re covered.”
“How do you know that?” I snap because my brain wants something concrete to hold onto instead of fear.
“I know,” he repeats, and there’s no room in his tone for negotiation. “I put them there myself. Now move.”
He turns back to the desk, climbs up again, and pops the ceiling tile free with practiced ease.
A square of darkness opens above us.
My stomach lurches.
“You need to go up there,” he says, already reaching down for me.
“In the ceiling?” My voice goes up an octave. “Antonio, are you out of your mind? You want me to go in the ceiling?”
“Yes.”
