Chapter 40
Isend the text while walking as I drop the marble I picked up off the floor into my pocket.
ALEJANDRO: Saint’s in the wind.
The reply comes almost immediately.
UNKNOWN: Not an option.
UNKNOWN: Find her.
My jaw tightens. Of course there’s no space for uncertainty, no room for complications. The plan doesn’t bend because someone has feelings about it. It doesn’t slow because Saint decided to think for herself.
Tonight is happening. No matter who resists it. No matter who tries to stop it.
And I need Saint next to me when it does.
There can be no other outcome than that.
ALEJANDRO: I’ll find her.
The AV overflow room is exactly where I left it. I pause at the corner, scan the corridor, let a pair of catering staff pass before slipping inside. The door swings shut quietly behind me.
The rifle case sits where it should, buried among identical black shells and tangled cables. I take a second longer than necessary to look at it, the weight of the choice settling in my chest.
Then I sling it over my shoulder and move.
If Saint’s gone quiet, it’s because she found something. Which means she’s already moving. Saint never freezes. She pivots.
She’s either half gone or already on her way to me.
The locker room is empty when I reach it but I check anyway, habit overriding trust.
I strip out of the service uniform in seconds. Jacket off. Shirt gone. Shoes kicked aside. I move with the speed of someone who has done this under worse conditions, with higher stakes. The rifle settles against my back like it belongs there, like it’s been waiting.
I cross to Saint’s locker.
The metal is cold under my fingers. The lock is still set. I test it once before I try a code that would have worked two years ago.
Nothing.
I exhale slowly and take out my blade. Stepping into the locker, using my body to hide the weapon, I slide the knife into the thin strip and pop the latch. The door swings open.
Just as my hand wraps around the handle and I pull it free, a shadow shifts behind me.
“Well, well,” Saint says, voice smooth and sharp all at once. “If it isn’t Alejandro Cruz.”
I straighten slowly and turn.
She’s leaning against the row of lockers, posture relaxed, eyes bright with a kind of focus I don’t like seeing aimed at me. She looks calm. Too calm. Like the decision already landed and this is just the follow-through.
“Running away so soon?” she adds.
I don’t answer.
Because there’s no version of the truth she’d accept right now.
And because she already knows.
“Care to explain that little stunt back there?” Saint asks.
Her voice is level, almost casual, which tells me more than if she were shouting. She isn’t looking for reassurance. She’s measuring me.
I take a step back, then another, creating space without appearing to flee. As I do, I adjust my grip on her backpack, which feels a hundred pounds heavier than it should. The weight isn’t physical. It’s accusation.
“Someone bumped me,” I say.
The lie barely survives the air between us.
Saint’s mouth curves, slow and sharp, sarcasm bleeding into every syllable. “Oh, I bet.”
She studies me for a moment, then exhales softly. “You know, I’m disappointed.”
That lands harder than anger would have.
She steps away from the locker, arms loose at her sides, and that’s when I notice the flip phone in her hand. Small. Ugly. Unremarkable.
Thank God it isn’t a weapon.
“I thought you’d come better prepared,” she continues. “Something cleaner. Like the real assassin setting off a chain reaction to keep me from warning Hartley.” Her gaze flicks over me, unimpressed. “But someone bumped you. Okay.”
She opens the phone, glances at the screen, and tosses it toward me.
“I’m more interested in these.”
I catch it automatically. The images are already pulled up, grainy and monochrome and far too familiar.
My jaw tightens before I can stop it.
I tilt my head once. “Not sure.”
I close the phone and hand it back.
She doesn’t take it immediately. “You sure about that?” she asks. “That’s your final answer?”
Her eyes sharpen, focus narrowing. “Because I’m giving you a chance here. After this, there aren’t any more.”
I hold her gaze. “Wish I could help.”
She nods slowly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
The gun appears so smoothly it’s almost graceful, drawn from behind her back and leveled at my chest in a single, controlled motion. Her arm is steady. Her grip flawless.
“I told you,” she says quietly, “if you crossed me, this is what would happen.”
I don’t move. Any reaction would be read as weakness or guilt, and neither will help me now.
The flip phone rings.
Saint doesn’t break eye contact as she answers and switches it to speaker. “You find it, Grim?”
“Yup,” Grim replies. “Ready when you are.”
I knew this was going badly. I hadn’t realized how thoroughly I’d lost control of it.
“See?” Saint says, conversational now, almost gentle. “Grim was looking out for me. Didn’t trust you, Alejandro.” She steps closer, the gun never wavering. “Kid’s got good instincts.”
She’s taking her time. Letting the truth settle in layers.
I notice, distantly, that there’s no suppressor on her weapon. In a locker room. In a building crawling with high-ranking officials.
The odds she fires here are low.
Which means I might still have a chance.
“Grim hacked your phone while we were at his house,” Saint says.
My mind flashes back to that moment. Eight seconds. That’s all he needed at the keyboard. Eight fucking seconds.
It almost makes me angry.
Almost.
If I weren’t already thinking about my sister. About my family. About how exposed they are if this goes the wrong way.
“Play it, Grim,” Saint says.
The recording starts, and I close my eyes before the first line finishes.
A woman’s voice, calm and curious. “You deleted them?”
My voice answers, steady and unmistakable. “Yes.”
Then the line that ends any remaining pretense.
“They’re the only photographs that exist of the Guildmaster.”
Saint tilts her head, studying me like a puzzle she’s already solved.
“You’re the only visible man in those photos,” she says. “Aren’t you, Alejandro?”
I say nothing.
“You deleted the evidence,” she continues. “You controlled the narrative.”
She isn’t accusing me. She’s stating fact.
Time compresses, options narrowing until there are only two left.
If I stay, she will shoot me.
If I run, I confirm everything she already believes.
The look in her eyes isn’t anger or betrayal. It’s judgment.
“You’re the Guildmaster,” she says.
She gestures wide with one arm, encompassing the lockers, the building, the entire situation, while the other remains trained on me. “All of this…”
Voices rise behind her. Too close. Too sudden.
Three women enter the locker room mid-conversation, and Saint pivots instinctively, hiding the gun.
It’s the only opening I’ll get.
I move.
I throw her backpack at her face and bolt.
I shoulder past the women hard enough to knock two of them off balance. They stumble into each other, blocking the doorway just long enough.
Seconds. A few precious seconds. That’s all I need.
I break into the corridor, the rifle bouncing against my back as I run, my pulse loud in my ears.
For now, I’m out of Saint’s crosshairs.
But one thought follows me with absolute certainty as I disappear into the maze of back halls.
Tonight, will change everything.