Chapter 15
Reece was bored out of his mind but doing his usual routine.
He did the work that a consultant would do.
It was mind-boggling how anyone would want to write these reports or do the inspections he was required to do.
Boring. All caps, no middle ground. But he could deal with the boredom as long as he was near Maggie and here to support her.
Max fed him a schedule that he kept to, and adherence kept him from Darkwater’s attention.
They monitored everything, including him.
So, he wrote the reports and completed the inspections.
Moving through the operations corridor with the same measured pace he'd maintained since arriving on the platform.
Controlled presence. No attention drawn.
Just another consultant doing another day of observing infrastructure and behavioral patterns.
Max yelled into his ear.
"She's been called down to the maintenance level. There are no work orders open. Something’s up."
Reece was instantly alert. His stride didn't change, but everything inside him went still and focused. Movement was never random on this platform. Not for someone like Maggie Brooks.
"Where?" he asked quietly, his lips barely moving.
"West maintenance bay. She got a DM. Security routing. Proper formatting. She's responding to it."
Reece's gut tightened. He shifted direction, angling toward the nearest terminal positioned along the corridor wall, and pulled up a maintenance interface like he was checking system status.
Reece didn't ask questions. "Something's wrong."
"I know." Fingers were already moving on the other end. Reece could hear the rapid keystrokes through the comms. "I'm pulling camera feeds now. She's already on the move. Elevator descending to lower maintenance levels."
Reece closed the terminal interface and started walking. Fast. Controlled. Blending into the platform traffic.
"Get your ass down there," Max snapped.
Reece moved immediately. His stride lengthened without breaking into obvious urgency. He navigated through green corridors, past analysts heading toward shift change and engineers discussing equipment failures. He took the stairs instead of the elevator, descending three levels in rapid silence.
Every step was measured. No sprinting. No drawing eyes.
But every second stretched.
"I'm inside the systems," Max said in his ear. "Watching all camera feeds. Monitoring her location. She's in the west bay now. Alone."
Reece's pace increased. Just enough to matter. Not enough to be noticed.
"Cameras show empty space," Max continued. "No maintenance crew. No security. Nothing. This was a setup."
Reece hit the maintenance level corridor. The environment changed immediately. Fewer people. More steel. The hum of machinery was louder here.
Then Max swore bitterly. The kind of profanity that meant something had gone catastrophically wrong.
"What?" Reece demanded.
"Someone just shoved her over the edge."
Time stopped.
"What?"
"She's hanging onto a bar of metal. Barely holding on. Cameras show—" Max changed. No calm now. Pure urgency. "Haul ass, Ranger. Now."
Reece broke into a full run.
“I’m blurring the camera feeds and muting microphones. I’m creating digital noise in the system.” Reece heard him working through the comms, keystrokes flying, systems bending to his will.
But none of that mattered.
Only the distance mattered.
Reece's boots pounded against the metal grating. He tore through the maintenance corridors, past steel support beams, past machinery that hummed and clanked and vibrated the floor beneath him. Wind hit him as he reached the exposed sections, salt spray stinging his face.
He barely registered people stepping out of his way.
He only registered distance. And the fact that Maggie was hanging over open ocean with nothing but her grip keeping her alive.
He reached the west maintenance bay at a dead sprint and instantly saw where she was through the slatted grating. She was hanging from a jagged piece of iron. One hand barely holding on. Her body was swinging in the wind. Legs kicking for purchase that didn't exist.
Time compressed.
Reece dropped to his stomach, sliding across the harsh burred steel, the momentum carrying him to the edge. Wind roared in his ears as he lunged, arm shooting out, fingers closing around her wrist as her grip slipped entirely.
Her weight yanked against him. His shoulder screamed. He locked his other arm around a support beam, anchoring himself, and pulled with everything he had.
"I've got you," he gritted out. "Hold on."
Maggie's other hand found his forearm. Her fingers dug in desperately.
Reece hauled her up. Muscle, adrenaline, and a sheer refusal to let go wound through him. Her body came over the edge, clearing the edge. He dragged her away from the lip of the grating and pulled her across the steel until they were both clear.
They collapsed together onto the grating.
Breathing hard. Hearts hammering and wind tearing at them.
For one perfect, terrible moment, it was just the two of them. His hand was still gripping her arm. Her fingers still curled into his sleeve. The space between them compressed to nothing.
Then boots pounded toward them.
Multiple sets. Running hard.
"Security," Max’s voice said in his ear, urgent. "Response team incoming. Thirty seconds. Story ready?"
Reece forced himself to release Maggie's arm. Though the separation felt wrong, it was necessary. He shifted away from her, putting professional distance between them even as his body screamed to stay close.
Flashlights cut through the shadows.
Voices shouted. Authority reasserting itself.
Security personnel flooded into the bay, weapons drawn, eyes scanning for threats.
Reece saw Dex in the response group. He stood slowly, hands visible, posture non-threatening.
Every movement was deliberate. The front of his jacket and shirt were shredded from the decking where he’d slid to the edge.
Maggie stayed on the grating, her breathing still ragged, hands trembling.
Dex reached them first, flashlight beam sweeping across Reece's face, then Maggie's.
"What happened here?"
Reece spoke before Maggie could. Calm. Controlled. His voice carried just the right amount of concern without urgency.
"I was working near a terminal on one of the levels above. I happened to look out the observation window and saw movement. Someone went over the railing." He gestured toward Maggie. "I ran down. Got here just in time."
Another man frowned, and his eyes narrowed. "You saw someone fall?"
"I saw someone go over," Reece corrected. "I didn't see how. Just that they needed help."
More security arrived. Someone was already pulling up camera feeds on a portable tablet, fingers swiping through angles and timestamps.
"There's an angle," one of them muttered. "Barely visible. Shows the railing. Movement. Something."
The image on the screen was grainy, obscured by shadows and the angle. Not clear enough to show details. Just enough to confirm something had happened.
Reece kept his expression neutral. Concerned consultant who'd responded to an emergency. Nothing more.
They turned to Maggie. Questions piled on. Fast. Overlapping.
"Ms. Brooks, what were you doing down here?"
"Why were you alone?"
"What happened?"
Reece watched her force herself to sit up and steady her voice despite the tremor still visible in her hands.
"I received a DM," she said. "Security routing. It ordered me to report to the west maintenance bay immediately."
Faces closed, and suspicious eyes sharpened.
"Why would security summon you here?" Dex asked.
"I don't know," Maggie said. "I assumed there was a systems issue. I responded."
Skepticism settled across their faces. Immediate and obvious. Everyone except Dex seemed to doubt her words.
"Alone?" another officer pressed. "To maintenance?"
"I followed protocol," Maggie said, her voice steady despite everything. "The message was authenticated. I verified the credentials before responding."
The lead officer exchanged glances with his team. "We'll need to see that message."
Maggie nodded. "It's on my terminal. My tablet went over with me and landed on the grating."
They escorted her away. Not walking with her. Surrounding her. Security behind. Security ahead. Security on either side. The only good thing about this situation was that Dex was with her.
Reece stayed where he was, watching her go, his expression carefully neutral.
She glanced back once. Just a flicker of eye contact. He didn't react. He couldn't react.
The security team finished their sweep of the bay, documenting the scene, taking photographs, and collecting her broken tablet from the grating below.
One of them turned to Reece. "We'll need a formal statement. Do you want medical attention?” He nodded to Reece’s shirt.
"No, I’m fine, and of course, I’ll provide a statement," Reece said.
They led him in a different direction than they’d taken Maggie. Standard procedure. Keep the witnesses separated until they knew the full story.
As he walked, Max came back into his ear, quiet and grim.
"Cameras in that section were turned off remotely. Someone with serious access. I brought them back online and wiped the feeds clean. There's no trace of what really happened. No trace of the attacker."
Reece tapped once against his ear. Acknowledged.
"She's in trouble," Max continued. "Real trouble. And she doesn't have proof of anything because it’s been wiped. I have copies, but that does nobody any good. If I send them to her, they’ll know she has help. I’m running this up the flagpole. This was too damn close."
Reece kept walking, kept his pace measured, kept his expression bland. But inside, everything had shifted. Someone had just tried to kill Maggie. The game had changed. They were no longer just collecting evidence against Darkwater.
Darkwater was actively manipulating Maggie. The criminals on the executive level had shown their teeth, and Reece couldn’t wait to take them down.