Chapter 211: No Way Out.
Sherry’s hand trembled in mine, her short brunette hair falling messily across her forehead, a few strands sticking to her damp skin.
We’d thought the empty chamber was the worst thing tonight had to offer. We were wrong.
"Who killed them?" Sherry asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers twitched against my palm.
I swept the room with my eyes, pulse hammering in my ears. No forced entry. No signs of a struggle that had lasted long enough to be heard. The scene was clean and deliberate, the kind of work that happened between moments, in the spaces where no one was looking.
Owen’s voice echoed in my head, clear as the moment he’d said it.
You trust people too easily. You believe in them too easily.
You’re not a fool. How come your eyes aren’t open?
And then Riya’s letter. Mary’s words in the cell.
A ghost is never right or wrong. It comes down to who’s holding the contract.
She had handed Sherry the camera with that generous smile. She had suggested Sherry come along. She had cleared the room.
Mary Stam had been in this office. Mary Stam had rushed past us in the corridor without stopping, moving fast, eyes distant, not seeing us at all.
Everything can be right. Everything can be wrong.
"Bram." Sherry’s hand tightened around mine, her fingers cold and clammy. Her breath hitched.
"We need to leave," I said, voice low and urgent. "Now."
Whoever held Mary’s contract was already sending people in, and we were standing in the office of the man they’d just killed. There was no version of this where staying worked out.
We ran.
The corridors of the command floor stretched long and sterile under harsh overhead lights, our footsteps echoing sharply off the polished floors. I stayed half a step ahead, just enough to clear the path, my hand locked around Sherry’s and refusing to let go. Her short brunette hair bounced with every urgent stride, strands whipping across her face.
"Where are we going?" she asked, breathing hard behind me, voice strained between gasps.
I didn’t know. Any exit. Any way out that wasn’t back through Bala’s office or straight into the arms of whoever was coming through the front door.
We burst onto another floor. Sherry bent at the knees for a single second, one hand braced on her thigh, chest heaving. Sweat glistened at her temples. Then she pushed herself upright with a sharp exhale and kept moving.
Another set of stairs loomed ahead. I took them two at a time, thighs burning, hand never releasing hers. She stumbled once on the steps but caught herself, fingers squeezing mine harder.
Mary, I thought, the image of her rushing past us burning behind my eyes. She said she called CGI for safety. She said the families wanted her dead. But the Veyrons are the ones running the revolution outside.
Did she walk into CGI custody just to get inside the building?
Was she ever in danger at all?
My grip on Sherry tightened as we pushed deeper into the building’s twisting guts, the echo of our footsteps chasing us like something already closing in.
The emergency alarms kicked in, a sharp, continuous wail that bounced off every wall and drilled straight into the skull. Pauline’s doing, from somewhere in the mission room. Buying time. Doing what she could.
We hit another floor and stopped short, chests heaving. Below us, elevator doors hissed open. The heavy thud of multiple boots followed—organized, purposeful—along with low, clipped voices. The sound of people who had been waiting for a signal and had just received one.
I need a way out.
I put the question to the system directly. Both of us stood frozen in the stairwell, breathing hard, the alarm slicing through everything like a blade.
The system didn’t answer fast enough.
"Give me a way out," I said out loud, voice rough.
"What?" Sherry looked at me sharply, her short brunette hair damp with sweat and plastered to her temples. Her eyes widened for a split second.
"Sorry." She understood. She always understood.
[Two options. The near one has a—]
Give me the near one.
[Go straight.]
I grabbed Sherry’s hand, her fingers slick with sweat, and we sprinted straight down the corridor toward what looked like a plain maintenance door at the far end.
[It’s unlocked.]
I hit it shoulder-first. The door gave way with a metallic bang that reverberated down the stairwell. It opened onto a narrow staircase plunging downward, steep and unlit. We didn’t run it. We were too spent for that. We took it fast but controlled, one hand gripping the cold metal rail, the other locked tightly with Sherry’s. Our footsteps clattered unevenly on the concrete steps.
"How did you know this was here?" she asked from just behind me, voice tight and breathless.
"Instincts," I muttered, not breaking stride.
Another door waited at the bottom. I eased my head through first, heart hammering, eyes scanning left and right. Then I stepped out. Sherry followed close behind, her free hand brushing my back for balance.
Outside. The night air hit us immediately—cool, sharp, and carrying the faint metallic tang of the city. We had emerged at the side of the CGI building, away from the main entrance. The alarm was still audible through the walls, but muffled now, like a distant scream.
I swept my eyes across the darkness, shoulders tense, scanning for movement.
Too clear.
Then, from the shadows hugging the building’s edge, came the unmistakable sound of weapons being readied—sharp mechanical clicks that cut through the night. A group of soldiers stepped out of the gloom, guns raised and trained on both of us, their silhouettes hard and unmoving against the faint city glow.
They had us.
[That was the complication I was trying to tell you about.]
Of course it was.
My feet stopped where they were. Sherry’s grip crushed my fingers as her breath caught audibly beside me. I felt her freeze, every muscle going rigid in the same heartbeat mine did.
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