Aha. She’s desperate for something. I file that away. She didn't come here for profit. This is personal.
The elevator stutters, grinds, then keeps climbing, now at half speed. Like it's thinking about stopping. Like whatever security protocol the Tribunal just activated is deciding whether to strand us between floors or let us ride to the top and ice us bothwhen the doors open.
I don’t like either option.
I catch her eyes in the red fog. She's scared now. Not of me, but of this. Of being trapped. Of whatever she came here for slipping through her fingers.
“Relax, sweetheart. We're not dying in an elevator in Bucharest. That's not how my story ends.”
“Stop calling me sweetheart. You know my name. Use it or shut up,” she snaps, whirling around to lance me with a glare.
“Where's the fun in that?”
Her jaw tightens as she white-knuckles her gun.
The elevator groans, moving upward but at an agonizingly slow pace. I use the time to study details like the sweat pebbling her forehead, the grip on her gun, her throbbing pulse at the base of her neck. She's terrified but furious and still believes she’s the most dangerous person in this building.
Tierney Blake didn't come here for money. The desperation in her eyes is the kind that comes from protecting someone you love, not filling a bank account. And that makes her more dangerous than anyone the Tribunal has on its payroll because desperate people don't negotiate. They detonate.
The elevator finally shudders to a stop and the doors grind open to a loading bay on the ground level. A cracked concrete floor is laid out in front of us. Industrial shelving lines the perimeter and fluorescent bulbs flicker overhead.
And beyond the half-open bay door is a dark alleyway where a truck sits, waiting.
Her ride, I guess.
Tierney darts out before the doors have a chance to finish opening, ducking low, boots pounding against theground. She heads straight for that bay door like her life depends on it.
And it does because a Tribunal guard rounds the shelving unit with an automatic rifle pointed at her back.
She doesn't see him.
I do.
I fire off two shots and he drops before he has a chance to pull the trigger on his weapon. She flinches, spins just in time to see the guard’s body drop, and for a hot second, those blue eyes find mine.
No thank you. No acknowledgment at all. Just a flicker of something raw before she turns and runs.
You're fucking welcome, Tierney.
Two more guards run through a side entrance with their weapons drawn, shouting in Romanian. They fire at me and bullets spark off the concrete at my feet. I dive behind a forklift and go for my Uzi this time. A hail of bullets spray the air. One guard drops. The other staggers backward behind some shelves.
Tierney sprints into the darkness toward the truck.
I run toward the second guard, taking him out with a few more shots before I run after her. My ears ring, my Kevlar vest bruised from a hit I didn't even feel in the chaos.
She’s still about ten feet from the truck.
And I'm faster.
I tackle her three feet from the driver’s side door. We fall to the wet concrete, limbs tangled. She drags her nails down the side of my face, drawing blood as I pin her wrists over her head and lock her legs between mine.
But she fights dirty and manages to free one of her knees and drive it into my balls. She doesn’t catch them full-on butI have to grit my teeth for a second. Her face is a mess of fury, teeth bared, and fuck, it makes my blood sing. I tighten my grip on her wrists. She twists, writhes, throws me everything she has to get free, knocking my cap off in the process.
“Hand over the drive, Tierney,” I manage to say through gritted teeth, blood dripping from the scratches she carved into my face. “Last fucking chance.”
She glares up at me, pure defiance, her chest heaving. Our faces are inches apart. I can count her eyelashes and see the sweat on her upper lip.
“You want to know what's on it, Bronx Viacava?” she hisses, apparently recognizing me now. “Proof that your family is corrupt. And if I don’t use it, my brother dies.”
