By the time they left the warehouse, Ethan had made his decision.
Cooperate. Survive. Reclaim power from inside the trap—bit by bit. She wanted results? He'd deliver. Not for her. For himself. Because the only way out was through.
They didn't speak on the drive back into the city. Anna drove a beat-up sedan that smelled like engine oil and old coffee. Ethan's wrists ached. His stomach was still tight from that pathetic excuse of a breakfast sandwich. But his mind had already started to whir, sharpening like a blade on stone.
When they arrived, she expected an office.
What she got was a fortress.
Ethan stepped into the building's underground garage like a man returning to his castle. He used a thumbprint and retina scan to access a private elevator. No button panel inside. It just moved.
The doors opened on the 9th floor—not marked. No placards. No receptionist. Just a corridor of matte black stone and recessed lighting. Cold. Silent.
Anna followed, her instincts screaming. There were no windows. No visible cameras. No sound.
"You built this place?" she asked.
"Had it custom-designed. Back when I started getting clients who didn't like... interruptions."
He led her to a wall panel that looked seamless. Tapped twice. A hidden biometric scanner slid out. He placed his hand, and a section of the wall hissed open.
A false room.
It looked like a simple file storage closet at first—metal shelves, labeled boxes.
Then Ethan moved to the back wall. He pressed a small button under the lowest shelf. A mechanical whir. The entire shelf rotated slowly, revealing a vault door embedded in concrete.
"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered.
He input a code. Then spoke aloud: "Caveat Emptor."
Click.
The vault opened into a small control room—no bigger than a walk-in closet, but far more dangerous. The walls were lined with screens. Surveillance feeds. A floor plan of the building. Digital folders labeled with names that made Anna's pulse tighten.
"That's your dead drop folder," he said. "Now we build it better. Cleaner. Scarier. The right way."
She turned slowly, eyes catching on framed degrees, case files, a drawer labeled "Senators."
"You really were their last resort, weren't you?" she murmured.
He gave her a sideways look. "Monsters don't hire choirboys."
For the first time, she saw it clearly. Not just the skill. The ruthlessness. But the genius in it. The layers. The paranoia. The meticulous design.
Back in the outer corridor, she noticed how far the assistants' desks were from his office. How thick the doors were. How even the light felt sterilized.
"This is... extreme," she said.
Ethan shrugged. "Some clients had bounties on their heads. Some wanted to bury whistleblowers. Some wanted clean exits."
She looked at him, the gears in her mind shifting.
"And you gave it to them all."
"That was the job."
She folded her arms, looking around again.
"You're not just good at your job, Cross. You were a damn architect of silence."
He smirked faintly. "And yet here we are. With you holding the detonator."
She didn't smile.
"That's what scares me. You built a kingdom of shadows and managed to keep the wolves fed. Until now."
"So what does that make you?"
She leaned in, voice low.
"The one wolf who learned how to bite back."
Ethan's smirk vanished.
In that moment, something unspoken passed between them. Respect. Wariness. And a twisted recognition:
They were no longer predator and prey.
They were co-conspirators in a world that had no rules left to break.
The main office was finally before them. He unlocked the solid-core door with an old-fashioned key—one of the few analog precautions he insisted on. The room inside was a contrast to the sleek corridors: warm wood paneling, bookcases filled with law tomes and unfiled paperwork, and an executive desk that looked like it had been carved from a battleship.
He flicked on the lights, then went straight to the espresso machine in the corner. A hiss of steam. The whir of fresh grind. He reached for two mugs—black ceramic, plain—and placed them on the tray. From a drawer beneath the counter, he took out two pre-packaged pastries and tossed them on the table, then after a brief second of hesitation, grabbed two more.
"I'm starving," he muttered, more to himself than her. "You probably are too."
He placed them beside the coffee and returned to his desk, dropping heavily into the leather chair like he hadn't sat properly in weeks. His fingers moved automatically across the keyboard, inputting the first password. Then the second. Then a third.
Anna crossed her arms and watched.
He raised an eyebrow. "Triple encrypted. Layers. In case one gets hacked, the next doesn't get touched."
The screen blinked to life. Dozens of folder trees unfurled.
He opened one marked "Kellerman."
The dossier was... extensive.
Contracts. Internal memos. Deleted emails recovered. Payoffs. Settlements. Non-disclosure agreements. Photos.
"I compiled this five years ago," Ethan said, sipping his coffee. "The evidence I scrubbed. The trails I erased. Every corner I buried to keep him clean."
"And now?" she asked.
He gave her a dry smile.
"Now I unbury it. We start by leaking the right whispers—controlled, anonymous tips. Then we make Kellerman nervous. Make him run. When he runs, he makes mistakes. Mistakes give us openings. And we follow the trail."
Anna's expression hardened. "And when he trips?"
Ethan's gaze darkened.
"We make sure he falls into the same abyss he once paid me to build."
She walked around to his side of the desk, looking at the files as he pulled up communications with shell companies, scrubbed bank logs, an offshore network that read like a financial thriller.
"You're not just helping me," she said. "You're dismantling your own work."
Ethan gave a half-shrug. "It's still mine. And if I built it once, I can unravel it better than anyone else."
Anna said nothing, but her silence brimmed with something different this time. Not doubt. Not suspicion.
A reluctant trust.
But Ethan felt it stir in his gut—something colder, quieter, more unsettling than betrayal: familiarity. The gears of destruction turning with the same precision he once used to shield. A defense lawyer turned saboteur. A craftsman gutting his own cathedral.
He looked over at Anna, her face lit by the glow of his monitor, and saw in her eyes the reflection of something he wasn't ready to name.
He didn't trust her.
She didn't trust him.
But trust wasn't the currency here.
Mutual destruction was.
They had just declared war on an empire Ethan once served.
And Ethan Cross—master of defense, king of deflection—was preparing his opening strike.