He stood in front of me, a dark shape in the industrial twilight. He held his stare, unblinking.
His eyes travelled over my face, memorising it. I felt the shadows inside me stir—a warm, steady pressure against my heart. It was a promise. A silent vow that resonated through my ribs.
He nodded once, brisk and final.
“Go,” he said.
He turned and walked away.
I watched him join the others. Goran hit the call button for the lift. The doors slid open with a rattle.
Riven, Dane, and Goran filed inside.
They looked like an army of three. Riven met my eyes one last time as the doors began to slide shut.
My chest tightened, adrenaline flooding my veins. I curled my hands into tight fists, driving my nails into my palms to ground the fine tremor shaking my fingers. The doors clicked shut, and I was alone with the twins.
“Right,” Torvin said, his voice devoid of its usual humour. He looked at the ladder. “Sixty floors. Let’s hope you’ve been doing your cardio.”
Karys was already prying the access panel open wider. “Head down. Mouth shut. Move.”
I took a breath of the damp, stagnant air. I reached for the iron rungs, the cold metal biting into my palms.
I fixed my eyes on the shaft above and I started to climb.
Riven
The service lift smelled of grease and the lingering, copper stench of the sewer that still clung to our clothes.
I watched the floor indicator rise. Sub-Basement to Lobby.
Beside me, Goran stood like a granite statue, his breathing slow and deep. Quiet and composed.
Dane stood near the doors, rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension. He weighed the telescoping baton in his hand, a rhythmic, unconscious motion of a man used to holding a weapon. The movement stopped the instant the lift began to slow. He went still, ready to breach.
“No hesitation,” I said, my voice low. “We aren’t here to negotiate. We are here to be the loudest thing in the building.”
“Loud,” Dane agreed, his eyes flat and hard. “I can do loud.”
The bell chimed. A cheerful, polite sound that had no business announcing what was about to happen.
The service doors slid open, revealing the atrium of Quinn Tower. It was an expanse of glass and white marble, the morning light harsh against the stone. In the centre, the kinetic sculpture turned slowly—massive silver rings slicing through the air in a silent, hypnotic cycle.
Two guards manned the front desk, their attention drifting. Near the entrance, a maintenance drone whirred, buffering the pristine floor.
We stepped out. Three men covered in muck, smelling of the Undercity, carrying steel and shadow.
One guard at the desk looked up and froze. He reached for his radio.
“Breach!” he shouted.
Dane launched forward, closing the gap before the guard could speak. He moved with disciplined precision, aiming for a clean takedown. The baton cracked against the wrist, sending the radio skittering across the tiles, followed by a sharp drive to the solar plexus that folded the man in half.
The silence shattered.
Alarms blared—a high-pitched shriek that cut through the air.
“Here they come,” Goran rumbled.
