The silver briefcase hit the man's jaw with a sickening crack.
He hadn't expected me to fight. He expected a terrified socialite in a torn dress, not a weaponized woman who knew exactly which angle would shatter a mandible. He tumbled backward off the top of the elevator car, his body disappearing into the darkness of the shaft with a stifled cry.
I didn't stop to breathe. My heart was a drum, but my brain was a cold, calculating machine.
Shaft height: 120 feet. Weight of the car: 2,000 lbs. Friction of the cables: High. Estimated time until his backup arrives: 30 seconds.
I hauled myself through the ceiling hatch and stood on top of the stalled elevator. The air in the shaft was thick with grease and the smell of old metal. Above me, the cables stretched up into infinity; below me, a yawning black abyss.
My phone vibrated against my thigh. I pulled it out, the light blinding in the darkness.
Unknown: The elevator was a trap. They're cutting the cables from the penthouse. Jump to the 4th-floor ledge. Do it now.
I looked up. High above, I saw the orange sparks of a circular saw hitting the steel braided cables. They weren't trying to capture me anymore. They were trying to erase me.
"Who are you?" I whispered to the phone, but there was no reply.
I looked at the 4th-floor maintenance door. It was six feet away—a gap that felt like a mile when you were wearing a silk dress and holding a twenty-pound briefcase.
Snap.
The first cable gave way. The elevator car lurched violently, dropping three inches. The screech of metal on metal echoed through the shaft like a dying monster.
I didn't have 30 seconds. I had five.
I gripped the briefcase handle until my knuckles turned white. I took two steps back on the vibrating roof of the car, waited for the next lurch, and sprang.
My fingers caught the cold, oily edge of the 4th-floor ledge just as the remaining cables snapped. The elevator car vanished beneath me, a whistling wind following it down until a distant, thunderous boom shook the entire building. The vibration nearly shook me loose. My boots slipped against the concrete, and for a heartbeat, I was dangling over a ten-story drop by my fingernails.
Focus, Sloane. The wall is reinforced concrete. The door hinge is rusted. One kick.
I swung my body, using the weight of the briefcase as a pendulum, and slammed my feet into the maintenance door. It flew open, and I tumbled onto the dusty floor of a utility closet.
I lay there for a second, gasping for air, the taste of oil and copper in my mouth. My dress was ruined—smeared with black grease and blood—but I was alive.
I opened the briefcase.
Inside weren't just stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Tucked into the side pocket was a blueprint—a digital tablet displaying the layout of a high-security vault. Across the top in bold, red letters were the words: PROPERTY OF THE ARCHITECT. DO NOT DUPLICATE.
"The Architect," I whispered. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears.
A shadow fell over me.
I looked up. Standing in the doorway of the utility closet was a man. He wasn't like the others. He wasn't wearing a suit. He wore a tactical hoodie, a mask pulled down around his neck, and he had the same burner phone as mine in his hand.
"You're late, Sloane," he said. His voice was low, like gravel grinding together. "And you're bleeding on the merchandise."
I scrambled back, reaching for a heavy wrench on the floor. "Who are you? Did you send the texts?"
He stepped into the light. He had a jagged scar running through his eyebrow, and his eyes were the color of a winter sea. He didn't look like a friend, but he didn't have his gun drawn.
"I'm the guy who's supposed to make sure you don't die before Chapter 15," he said with a grim smile. "My name is Jax. And if we don't move in the next ten seconds, the cleaners are going to find us, and they don't use mops. They use acid."
He reached out a hand. I looked at it, then at the briefcase, then back at his eyes.
"Why should I trust you?" I asked.
"Because," Jax said, his expression softening for just a fraction of a second. "You're the one who hired me to kill you if you ever forgot who you were. And right now? I'm failing at my job."
My blood ran cold. I had hired a hitman to guard my own amnesia?
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway behind him. Jax didn't wait. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the corridor.
"Run now," he hissed. "Questions later."
As we sprinted down the dimly lit hallway of the 4th floor, I realized the briefcase wasn't just money. It was a map. And Jax wasn't just a helper. He was a trigger.
The building's alarm began to blare—a deep, rhythmic pulsing that felt like the city itself was screaming. We burst through a heavy fire door and into the rain-slicked streets of the city.
The hunt had truly begun.