Chapter 42
The lights dim.
Not abruptly. Gradually, like the room is being eased into obedience. The constant, unfocused roar of hundreds of conversations softens, then thins, then fades into a low expectant hum. People turn toward the stage without realizing they’ve done it. Bodies orient. Attention collects.
Light begins to move.
Sweeping arcs of illumination skate across the stage as music swells, polished and hopeful. The announcer’s voice rises over it all, practiced and warm, wrapping the crowd in language about innovation and vision and progress.
I search.
In two minutes, the mark will be on that stage. Alejandro knows that. Which means he has less than that to settle into position if he hasn’t already. Less than that to decide how this ends.
The announcer builds momentum, praising the newest jewel of the desert, the miracle of sustainability, the promise of a future powered clean and bright. Applause blooms on cue. It sounds enormous from up here, like surf breaking against glass.
Then Hartley’s name rings out.
My head snaps to the stage.
He walks out smiling, applause washing over him like he’s earned it. He shakes hands with the woman who announced him, exchanges a brief word, then steps behind the podium. Confident. Comfortable. Centered in the cone of light.
I count automatically.
One minute. Maybe two if the introduction runs long.
I drag my gaze away and scan again, faster now, my eyes skipping between shadows and structural lines and dead spaces. I move too quickly at first, have to force myself to slow down, to look properly. I check the same locations twice because panic lies about certainty.
Then movement flickers at the edge of my vision.
Across the hall.
High. Recessed.
I find him.
He’s positioned almost directly opposite me, tucked into a pocket of shadow where the architecture folds inward.
The angle is clean. Too clean. He’s no longer wearing the uniform from earlier but another waiter’s jacket, tailored enough to disappear under stage lighting. From the floor, he would be invisible.
From here, he is unmistakable.
Alejandro looks up.
Not scanning. Not searching.
Looking directly at me.
We lock eyes across the distance, the moment stretching thin and electric. The crowd below has no idea two rifles are about to decide the tone of history.
Then he breaks the stare and turns back to the stage.
His rifle is already assembled.
Still.
Leveled directly at Hartley.
I swivel my rifle toward him, the stand adjusting smoothly beneath my hands. I settle behind the scope, breath steady, movements precise. The crosshairs find him easily, frame his shoulder, then his head.
He shifts slightly, adjusting his stance. One eye closes. The other presses to the scope. He pulls back for a fraction of a second, checks the stage with his naked eye, then leans in again.
Professional.
Focused.
I stay on him, tracking every micro-movement. I adjust my aim higher, compensating instinctively. I don’t want a body shot. I don’t want time. I don’t want chaos spilling outward in the wrong direction.
A clean headshot.
End it before it begins.
I draw in a slow breath and let it out just as slowly, settling myself into the pocket where the world narrows and nothing exists except distance and consequence. My finger rests against the trigger, pressure building but not breaking.
My heartbeat seems to pause.
Everything slows.
Alejandro inhales.
Hartley leans forward, hands braced on the podium, ready to speak.
And then—
There’s a cough.
Not the polite kind. Not the clear-your-throat-before-you-speak kind. It’s wet and tearing, like something has gone down the wrong pipe and clawed its way back up.
Alejandro leans back from his scope.
That’s the first thing I notice.
He isn’t aiming anymore. He’s watching the stage with the same expression he had in the locker room. Calm. Almost curious. Like he’s waiting for a clock to finish ticking.
I’m just starting to tighten my finger on the trigger when the cough comes again.
Harder.
Brutal.
Hartley bends at the waist, one hand gripping the podium as the other claws at his own chest. The microphone catches the sound this time, amplifies it, sends it rippling through the auditorium like a gunshot made of lungs and liquid.
Gasps ripple through the crowd.
I tear my eyes from Alejandro and lock onto the stage.
Hartley’s face is already changing.
His lips are losing color, draining fast, turning an unnatural gray-blue as he sucks in air that isn’t doing anything for him.
His eyes are wide, whites stark, pupils blown like he’s staring into something only he can see.
He tries to speak, tries to inhale, but whatever is inside him has turned his throat into a closed fist.
He gags.
Black veins begin to spider up his neck, branching and branching, crawling toward his jaw like ink dropped into water. His skin tightens, swelling subtly at first, then more obviously as his body panics and floods itself with every failed response it has.
Someone rushes the stage.
Then another.
Hands grab his shoulders, trying to hold him upright, as if posture will fix this.
As if gravity is the problem. He retches violently, and thick, dark fluid spills from his mouth, splattering the podium, soaking his tie.
It isn’t vomit. It’s blood, frothy and wrong, bubbling as if his lungs are trying to expel themselves through his throat.
The smell hits even from up here, sharp and metallic and unmistakably…sweet.
Hartley’s body convulses.
His chest heaves in short, useless spasms. Each breath is worse than the last, a wet sucking sound that makes people in the front rows recoil. His hands clutch at nothing now, fingers curling and uncurling, nails scraping uselessly against the podium’s polished surface.
His eyes roll back.
Someone screams.
The crowd surges forward and backward at the same time, a living thing breaking apart. People stand on their seats to see. Others turn away, hands clamped over mouths, faces folding in horror. A woman stumbles as she tries to flee, heels slipping on the carpet slicked with spilled drinks.
Hartley’s legs give out.
They don’t catch him in time.
He hits the stage hard, body slamming down like a dropped marionette.
His back arches violently, a sound tearing out of him that isn’t human anymore.
His abdomen spasms, and his bowels give way, dark spreading beneath him, mixing with blood and bile in a grotesque stain that no one can look away from.
Security is shouting. Medics are shouting. Someone is crying prayers into a phone.
Hartley swells further, face bloating, tongue darkening as it protrudes slightly from between his teeth. Blood leaks from his nose now, thin and steady, while his mouth works soundlessly, trying to form a breath that will never come.
His body seizes one last time.
Then it goes slack.
The microphone squeals as it hits the stage, feedback shrieking over the silence that follows.
And then the silence breaks.
Screams. Wailing. Panic pouring through the auditorium as people push toward exits that suddenly feel very small.
Security forms a perimeter too late, shouting orders no one listens to.
The stage lights stay on, cruel and bright, illuminating the mess in perfect detail for every camera in the building.
Hartley doesn’t move.
He never will again.
I lift my gaze back to Alejandro.
He’s looking at me.
Not past me. Not through me. At me. The distance between us collapses into a thin, electric line, and for one suspended heartbeat it’s just the two of us, framed against glass and light and catastrophe.
The second he realizes I’m watching him, he breaks eye contact.
He drops back into the scope.
And fires.
My head snaps to the stage so fast my neck protests, adrenaline spiking hard enough to blur the edges of my vision. I expect a body to fall. A secondary collapse. Someone else going down in a spray of panic and blood.
Nothing.
It’s still Hartley, motionless and ruined, surrounded by the people who rushed in too late to matter. Hands hover uselessly over him. Medics kneel. Security shouts. No new victim. No fresh chaos.
I look back.
The doorway across the hall is empty.
Alejandro is gone.
No retreat. No scramble. No trace of movement. Just absence, like he was never there at all. A ghost that finished his work and evaporated.
Below, the conference center staff have switched to damage control mode, ushering people toward exits with firm voices and forced calm.
Some attendees move readily, eager to escape the sight and smell of what just happened.
Others can’t stop looking back, faces twisted in disbelief, like Hartley might suddenly sit up and force them to watch it all again.
I scan the upper levels, the catwalks, the shadows.
Nothing.
My pulse pounds in my ears as my mind races ahead of my body. If he took a shot, it wasn’t at Hartley. That means it was at something else. Or someone.
I pull the earpiece free from my collar, snap it into the port on the battered flip phone, and dial.
It rings once.
Then twice.
“Congratulations,” Grim answers cheerfully. “You’ve reached Grim’s personal hotline. If this is about murder, press one. If it’s about betrayal, press two. If it’s about your love life, hang up and rethink your choices.”
“He’s dead,” I say. “And I need your help.”
A pause. “Who? The boyfriend?”
I ignore that entirely. “Hartley. Poisoned.”
“Fuck.”
There’s yelling in the background, a woman’s voice sharp and indignant. Grim pulls the phone away and shouts, “Sorry, Mama,” before coming back on the line. “Okay. That’s bad. That’s very bad.”
I start breaking down my rifle as we speak, hands moving fast and precise, muscle memory taking over. Barrel off. Components separated. Everything stowed cleanly back into my bag. My eyes never stop moving, tracking the stage, the exits, the upper levels where he vanished.
Paranoia crawls up my spine.
“What the hell did he shoot at?” I murmur, more to myself than Grim.
“What?” Grim asks.
“I need you to hack the summit cameras,” I say. “All of them. Every angle. Inside and out.”
“Already doing it,” he says around a crunching sound. He’s eating something. Of course he is.
I stand, sling the backpack over my shoulder, and move along the wide ledge that had hidden me so well. I circle it carefully, staying low, until I reach the opposite side.
Alejandro’s side.
The carpet is still warm where he was lying. The impression faint but there if you know how to look. I kneel, peer down at the stage from his vantage point, tracing the line of sight.
It’s the same view I had.
No blind spots. No hidden figures. Nothing obvious that would justify a shot.
Which means the target wasn’t obvious.
“I’m going down there,” I say.
There’s a beat of silence. Then, “Mmm,” Grim replies thoughtfully. “That really a good idea?”
“It’s the only one.”
I move around the wall to the access ladder, its twin hidden in shadow just like the one I used. I descend quickly, controlled, sliding the last few feet down the rails and landing softly in the dark corridor that runs alongside the stage.
The noise from the auditorium is muffled here, panic turned into a distant roar. I slip along the back, staying in the shadows, my voice low as I speak into the earpiece.
“Tell me you’ve got eyes.”
Another crunch. I glance to my right like he might be standing there, crumbs on his shirt.
“Yeah,” Grim says. “I’m in. Every camera you could possibly want.”
“Good,” I reply. “Pull up Hartley’s death. Alejandro took a shot. I need to know exactly when.”
I pause, listening to my own breathing, already bracing for what the footage is about to tell me.
“At what—”