Victor Hale stood inside Clara Higgins’s apartment with his gun raised while every phone in the hallway began ringing.
For one strange second, nobody moved.
The splintered door hung from one hinge.
Mr.
Miller stood behind Victor, breathing hard, his expensive office coat dusted with wood.
Gabriel Rossy leaned against Clara’s kitchen wall, one hand pressed over the bandage on his shoulder and the other holding a pistol at his side.
Clara remained seated at the table.
Her finger rested beside the trackpad.
On the laptop screen, five messages showed the same status.
Sent.
Victor looked down at his phone.
The color left his face so quickly that Clara knew at least one recipient had already responded.
“What did you send?” he asked.
His voice was controlled, but his free hand had curled into a fist.
Clara turned the laptop slightly so he could see the attachments.
“Vendor records, approval logs, bank transfers, internal emails, and the conference-room recording Mr.
Miller forgot to erase.”
Mr.
Miller pushed past Victor.
“You recorded me?”
“You recorded yourself,” Clara said.
“You left the system running after our meeting.”
He lunged toward the laptop.
Gabriel stepped between them.
He was pale from blood loss, but the gun in his hand did not tremble.
“Take another step, Miller.”
Mr.
Miller stopped.
Victor’s phone vibrated again.
He glanced at the screen and gave a short laugh that fooled no one.
“You sent accounting files to a few bureaucrats.
That does not make you untouchable.”
A new message appeared in Clara’s inbox.
RECEIVED.
PRESERVE ALL ORIGINAL MATERIALS.
AGENTS ARE EN ROUTE.
Victor read it over her shoulder.
His eyes hardened.
“Federal agents cannot save you from what happens in the next five minutes.”
The elevator at the end of the corridor chimed.
Heavy footsteps moved toward the apartment.
Victor smiled.
“Those will be my men.”
Gabriel looked past him.
“You should have checked whose men survived the garage.”
A broad-shouldered man appeared in the ruined doorway with three others behind him.
His gray hair was damp with snow, and blood marked one cuff of his white shirt.
Clara recognized him from the rare photographs she had seen in business magazines.
Thomas Rourke, Gabriel’s chief of security.
He aimed his weapon at Victor.
“Put the gun down,” Rourke said.
“Your accounts are already frozen.”
Victor did not lower his weapon.
“You work for me now.”
Rourke’s expression did not change.
“No.
You paid two of my men.
You mistook them for all of us.”
The corridor filled with movement.
Two security officers disarmed the men Victor had brought upstairs.
A third pulled Mr.
Miller away from the laptop and forced him against the wall.
Victor kept his gun pointed at Clara.
Gabriel raised his own.
“This ends now,” Gabriel said.
“It ended for you in the garage,” Victor replied.
“You just have not accepted it yet.”
Clara watched them stare at each other across her small living room.
The men looked like opposites carved from the same material.
Gabriel was bleeding, unshaven, and wrapped in a torn shirt.
Victor’s suit was immaculate except for sawdust on one sleeve.
Yet Victor was the one who looked trapped.
Clara noticed his gaze shift toward the fire escape window.
She also noticed his thumb moving along the grip of his gun.
