Chapter 34 Wolfe
WOLFE
The city never sleeps. But tonight, it held its breath. We parked two blocks from the tower. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to.
Barron walked like the weight of his father’s name had settled across his spine again. Royal’s hands never left the crowbar. Loyal didn’t blink—his pulse a straight line, his jaw locked around unspoken math.
And me? I walked like I’d already buried myself. I wasn’t here to talk. I was here to take her back.
The Lawlor Tower rose like a mausoleum—steel and glass stacked over secrets. The front doors glinted under the streetlights. Too quiet. Too clean. A corpse dressed in chrome. Something was off.
Even the city seemed to know. The hum of traffic a few blocks away, muffled. Lights on nearby towers flickered—not out, not blinking. Just... uncertain.
No security in the foyer. No desk staff. No lights on the lower floors.
The reflection in the front glass looked more like a funeral procession than a team of men. Barron noticed it first. He stopped halfway across the street, eyes narrowing.
“Where the fuck are the guards?”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t slow. Just kept walking.
The front doors opened before I touched them. Not with the usual buzz. Not with the usual click. Just silence. Like breath held in a lung that was never meant to release.
The air inside was wrong. Cold without source. Clean without scent.
The kind of sterile that didn’t belong in buildings—it belonged in graves. This building raised me. I bled into its walls. I mapped out revenge in these rooms. Now it smelled like strangers.
Loyal’s hand went to his sidearm. “We’re exposed here.”
Royal didn’t speak. Just nodded once and tapped his heel against the marble floor.
“Too quiet,” he muttered.
Barron’s gaze swept the corners. “They want us upstairs.”
“I’m not playing fetch,” he added. But he still moved.
The lobby lights were dimmed low. Just enough to see by. The artwork on the walls cast long, distorted shadows. We walked past the oil painting of the Lawlor patriarch—his eyes seemed to follow us now, more than ever.
We reached the elevators. One stood open. Waiting. The light above it blinked. Not out of order. Not misfiring. Pulsing. It was ready.
Barron stepped in first. Then Loyal. Then Royal. I entered last.
As the doors slid closed, I turned to face them. And for a moment, we were trapped in glass and steel and the tension of everything we didn’t say.
The elevator was too bright. The lighting buzzed faintly. It cast our shadows long on the mirrored interior. None of us looked like ourselves.
Barron’s reflection seemed older. Angrier. Loyal’s was still. Too still. Royal’s gaze flicked, scanning for patterns in nothing. And mine? Mine stared straight ahead. Hollowed out. Fixed on a door that hadn’t opened yet.
Each floor ticked by like a heartbeat.
Like a countdown.
Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine—
Forty.
The doors opened. Silence. The air hit like a slap. Stale. Warm in the wrong way. Processed. Recycled.
The lighting here was off—different bulbs, slightly blue. A single overhead fixture flickered like it was glitching out of reality. We stepped into the hallway. And the world turned colder.
To the right, a streak of something.
Dark. Wet. Reflective.
Blood.
Not dried. Not old. Loyal crouched. Touched it with ungloved fingers.
“Still warm.”
The trail led forward. Dragged across the floor. Heavy, staggering lines like someone had been hauled or tried to crawl. We followed it.
It turned down the corridor to security. A second smear joined it—hand prints. One palm. Then another. Fingers bent at the wrong angle.
Then we saw him. Reynolds. Our night security. Slumped against the alarm panel. Blood pooled around him. One arm stretched toward the emergency trigger. His index finger was broken. Hanging by tendon. One inch from the switch.
“He tried,” Royal said.
“Didn’t make it,” Barron replied.
No one moved.
Then I stepped forward. Closed Reynolds’ eyes. His hand was shaking. Even dead, it hadn’t let go. We moved on. The corridor narrowed. Sound deadened.
Our footfalls vanished into the carpet. Only the hum of the building beneath our boots remained. A subtle vibration.
Wrong.
The lights overhead flickered. Once. Then again. Royal paused at the office breakroom. Pushed the door open with the crowbar.
Inside—
Coffee on the counter. Still steaming. Someone had been here. Recently.
Barron checked the fridge. Nothing.
Loyal opened a cupboard. Empty. Whoever had been here had taken what mattered. Left the rest as a decoy.
I moved forward. Toward the executive wing. The glass doors to our suite were open. That never happened. The corridor breathed around us. Not with air. With attention.
Every motion sensor watched. Every light flicker whispered. This building didn’t just contain us. It had been waiting for us. The lights in the office were wrong. Too bright. Too even. Every bulb replaced. Every panel humming.
Then I smelled it.
Copper.
Acid.
Decay.
Not just death.
Something intentional.
Then we saw Mason.
He wasn’t slumped.
He was nailed to the back wall.
Arms stretched wide. Palms pierced. Feet together, bolt through the ankle. His torso had been opened. Ribs cracked. Skin peeled back.
Words were carved into the meat of his chest:
TOO LATE.
His eyes—only one left—stared past us.
Wide open. Frozen.
His mouth had been torn open. Tongue missing. Cheeks cut into a forced smile. Royal cursed. Loud. Real. Loyal took a step back. “They staged him.”
“This is a message,” Barron growled.
“No,” I said. “This is a monument.”
Royal stepped back and slammed his fist into the glass. It spiderwebbed but didn’t break.
Loyal turned his face away. Barron drew his gun—not to aim it. Just to hold something. No one said it, but we were all thinking it. If Mason could die here, so could we.
I walked forward. Took Mason’s phone. The screen was still on. One draft. Unsent.
It’s not her.
It’s a—
Then nothing. Glitched characters. A blank line. The signal cut. I looked back. The hallway behind us was dark now. Lights out. Doors sealed.
“Move,” I said.
We entered the main suite. I stepped into the boardroom and rested my hand on the table. It was warm. Not ambient. Wired. I looked down and saw it then—
The edge of a cable. Taped to the underside. Painted black.
Hidden in plain sight.
That’s when we saw them. Wires. Everywhere. Taped to the ceiling. Run along the floorboards. Hidden beneath the rug. Connected to a black box under the boardroom table.
Red lights blinking.
If I disappear, it wasn’t an accident.
Camille’s voice.
Ours now.
“Fuck,” Loyal breathed.
He ran forward. Opened the box. Inside: enough explosives to level the tower. Thermal charges. Shaped. Timed.
“This is military grade.”
Barron reached into his coat. “Disable it.”
“I can’t,” Loyal said. “Not in time.”
I looked at him.
Dead calm.
“How much time?”
He didn’t answer. There was no timer. Just a signal. Waiting. Trip wire. Motion. Maybe remote.
“Back,” I ordered, panic rising like a wave. “GET THE FUCK BACK!”
Loyal’s voice cracked.
“We were never meant to walk out.”
But it was too late.
A flicker in my head.
Camille—standing in this room years ago, laughing, alive.
Then Camille—bleeding.
Then Cloe. Screaming.
Then—
Darkness.
The lights died. The door behind us locked. And the room screamed. High-pitched. Metal shriek. Not from the bomb. From the speakers. Feedback. A final warning.
I reached for the collar.
Held it tight.
Pressed it to my lips like communion.
Like prayer.
Like the last breath I'd ever take would taste of her.
Barron raised his gun. Royal clenched the crowbar. Loyal didn't move. Just stared. Then the floor vibrated. One long pulse. The air thinned. Collapsed. Bled.
And as the world went white—
As the room erupted into light and heat and end—
I swear I heard her voice. Not begging. Not afraid. Just saying my name.
Once. Like salvation. Like damnation. Like the only thing that ever mattered.
Then
nothing.