“Damn it.” I grabbed the files and shoved them into the bag Troy held out.
“Move. Now.” Dom was already at the door, checking the corridor.
We ran, but the route was compromised, guards appearing in passages that should have been empty, as though they'd known exactly when we'd be there. As though someone had tipped them off.
“This way,” Troy said, pulling us down a different corridor, away from the exits and deeper into the building.
The wrong direction, but the only option we had.
Behind us came shouts, radio chatter, and the sound of a pursuit getting organised.
We turned a corner and ran straight into Harrow's enforcer.
He had two men with him, armed and professional.
Dom didn't hesitate. He moved, grabbed the nearest guard, and slammed him into the wall with force that cracked the plaster, then followed with an elbow to the temple that dropped the man unconscious.
The second guard raised his weapon. Troy was faster—the taser hit him centre mass and he went down convulsing.
The enforcer smiled. “You should have stayed away from things that don't concern you.”
He moved fast and trained, catching Dom with a punch that should have broken ribs. Dom rolled with it and countered with a strike that connected with the enforcer's jaw, sending blood spraying across the floor.
I grabbed the fallen guard's weapon and covered Troy while he secured the files, my hands steady despite the adrenaline screaming through my system.
The enforcer pulled a knife.
Dom blocked the first strike, then the second, then the third. On the fourth, the blade caught his arm and opened a line from shoulder to elbow, blood immediately soaking through his shirt.
“Dom!” I raised the weapon.
He caught the enforcer's knife hand and twisted. Bones broke with an audible crack. The knife clattered to the floor. Dom followed with a knee to the solar plexus that folded the man, then an elbow to the back of his skull that put him down hard.
More footsteps. More guards. Too many to fight through.
“Service exit,” I said, the blueprints sharp in my memory. “Twenty metres in that direction. Leads to underground parking—we can lose them there.”
The service exit was locked from the inside. Troy worked it while Dom and I held the corridor. Guards appeared and I fired twice, warning shots, not trying to kill anyone, just buying time.
The lock clicked. We burst through into a parking area that was empty except for a few maintenance vehicles.
We piled into the extraction van and Troy drove us out through the chaos and into London streets that were near-empty at that hour.
We drove to the safe house Dmitri had prepared, an abandoned office space three miles from Ravenswood—close enough for backup, far enough for plausible deniability.
Inside, I laid out the evidence, photographed everything again, and started cataloguing what we had.
Dom sat bleeding on a chair while Troy worked on his arm. The cut was deep but clean, would need stitches, but it wasn't immediately life-threatening.
“We got it,” I said, looking at the files spread across the table. “Everything we need. Lily's case. James's notes. Proof of the network.”
“But not the name,” Dom said through gritted teeth as Troy pulled another stitch tight. “Not who Harrow was protecting.”
“No. But we have enough to force that revelation.” I stared at the evidence, my mind racing through possibilities. “The question is how we use this without getting ourselves killed in the process.”
“Adrian said burn it all down immediately,” Troy reminded me. “No waiting.”
“Burning it down doesn't mean going public.” I pulled out my phone, then stopped and put it back down. “Media exposure puts targets on our backs, makes us visible. Harrow's already proven he'll kill to protect this network—going to journalists just gives him clear targets to eliminate before the story breaks.”
