Chapter Two - Emery
Numbers soothe me, at least they did until tonight.
The office is nearly empty, the city a black river beyond the window, fluorescent lights humming overhead.
I scan cell after cell, redlining anomalies, mentally flagging one more line of expense fraud to send up the chain in the morning. I’ve learned to fade into these hours—early in, last out, always the one still at my desk when cleaning crews shuffle through.
That’s how you survive in this world: keep your head down, let your work speak, don’t let them see you’re smarter than half the room.
My eyes ache. I close them for a second, rolling my shoulders, stretching cramped fingers. My screen blurs with white and green.
I’m thinking about grabbing coffee—again—when I hear it. Footsteps, heavy and unhurried, coming down the corridor past the glass walls. Not security. Not a janitor. I glance at the clock: 9:42 p.m. Too late for anyone but the truly lost.
I turn off my monitor. There’s no real reason to hide, but something about the pace of those footsteps puts me on edge. My heart thumps hard, sudden and out of place. I risk a look through the slatted blinds.
A man passes. He’s tall, built for intimidation rather than speed, his shoulders filling the hallway. He’s wearing a suit that probably costs more than my rent, but it’s his sleeve that makes me freeze—white fabric streaked with something dark.
Blood. Fresh, not dried.
I barely breathe. My mind flickers through excuses—maybe an accident, a bad papercut, something stupid.
This man doesn’t look like the type to hurt himself by accident. His face is sharp, expressionless, almost bored. He heads toward the elevator, not glancing back, like he owns every inch of this floor.
My curiosity is a curse. It’s gotten me this job, these late hours, the constant feeling that I should keep my mouth shut.
I can’t stop myself. I wait until he’s distracted, then slip my feet into my shoes and grab my bag, my phone clutched tight in my palm.
I tell myself I’m only leaving for safety, that I’m not following him—I’m not that reckless.
Except, I am. I keep my head low as I cross to the elevators. For a second I think he sees me, and I duck around the corner.
He’s on the phone now. I can’t make out what he’s saying over the thunder of my own pulse.
His cologne lingers, something cold and clean and expensive. Then he’s gone, vanishing into the elevator.
I hit the button, palms sweating, nerves coiling under my ribs. The doors open. I step in and press for the garage, praying no one else is around to see me jump at every sound.
The ride down is slow, every floor a count of my own pulse. I watch the panel tick down—forty, thirty, twenty—and try to rationalize. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’ve built it up in my head because I’m tired, and tired women see monsters everywhere.
When the elevator doors open, I almost don’t move. The garage is huge, echoing, the kind of place where you’d expect to find echoes and oil stains and little else.
The only sound is the faint idle of an engine somewhere off to the left. I see movement—two men near a black car, both in dark coats, talking low. The tall man is there, his head angled.
I duck behind a concrete pillar, the surface cold and rough against my palms. I crouch, trying to slow my breathing, peering through the gap where two pipes run to the ceiling.
I watch as the men—three of them now, maybe four—move quickly, methodically. They’re not talking much. One of them opens the trunk. The tall one glances over his shoulder, and I nearly drop my phone.
It’s him. The man with the blood on his sleeve. His face is harder up close, carved out of shadow and sharpness. I catch a glimpse of a scar at his jaw, the kind you don’t get from shaving.
He moves like nothing surprises him, nothing can. I don’t know if I’m holding my breath until my chest starts to ache.
The others peel away, splitting off through different exits, like they’re trained to cover ground and vanish. I count heartbeats. I tell myself to leave, to go now, that nothing here is my business. I’m rooted in place, stuck by a sense that if I move, I’ll be seen.
Then it happens. He turns, eyes raking the garage. He sees me. I know it instantly. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t pretend he hasn’t noticed. He walks toward me, unhurried, a quiet kind of threat in every step.
I shrink back, my bag sliding down my arm. My mouth goes dry.
He stops three feet away. His voice is low, cold, iron. “Stay silent.”
For a second I think he might hurt me. The threat is right there in the way he looks at me—like I’m another problem, another variable he’ll solve if I make noise. My throat closes up.
I nod, my hand shaking so badly I nearly drop my phone.
He holds my gaze for one more second, then turns away, already forgetting about me.
I press myself into the pillar, knees trembling, mind racing. I don’t dare move. His men drift back, filling the empty space behind him.
One of them glances my way, his eyes flat and unreadable. I pull my coat tighter, trying to make myself smaller, invisible.
I realize with a jolt of terror that one of them is holding a corpse.
Although I can’t see a person—they’re wrapped in tarp—I know the shape of a person. The man in front tosses the corpse into the trunk, says something under his breath.
After a minute—or maybe it’s only a few seconds—the group is gone, melted into black cars and the humming dark. I’m left alone with the roar of my heart and the taste of fear on my tongue.
I stay tucked behind the pillar, willing myself to blend into the concrete, wishing for invisibility. My pulse won’t settle. I can still feel his gaze, the way it landed on me like a weight, cold and absolute.
I should leave. I need to leave, but I can’t get my body to move.
My phone buzzes in my hand—a sharp, shrill vibration that seems ten times louder in the echoing garage. I fumble it, almost drop it, then snatch it up again with trembling fingers.
The screen lights up: work email. The subject line is a client code I know too well—urgent audit notes from Sullivan. My thumb hovers over the notification. Ignore it , I tell myself. Just get out.
I can’t. Not really. Not with my job on the line, not with review season creeping up and bonuses a distant, necessary carrot. I slide my back farther against the pillar, thumb in my password, and force myself to skim the message.
It’s a request for additional figures, a reminder that the world keeps turning, even when something monstrous is crawling just under the surface.
My breath fogs as I answer. The words blur. I double-check for typos, reread my reply three times, then finally hit send. The simple act is grounding and surreal, numbers and danger clashing together in my chest.
I squeeze the phone in my hand, knuckles aching, and peek out again. The garage is empty now: no black cars, no men, just silence and shadows.
I turn around and sprint, steps clipped and too loud on the concrete. If I run for my car, he’ll spot me. The elevator is too exposed too, so is the exit; I skip it, head for the stairwell, the heavy door groaning as I push through.
Every landing is another chance for someone to appear, but it’s empty except for the echo of my own frantic breathing.
On the street, the night is sharp with cold. I hug my bag to my chest and keep my eyes down, moving fast, desperate to get to the lights and crowds of midtown.
A man leans against the building, half buried in a heap of blankets and old coats. He looks up as I pass, rheumy eyes catching on my face.
“Hey, miss! You lose something?” His voice is cracked, raspy, but there’s a weird edge of friendliness in it. It makes me flinch. I speed up.
He shuffles after me, one shoe dragging on the sidewalk. “Hey, I seen you runnin’. You in trouble?” He’s not close—can’t keep up with my pace—but the words chase me down the block.
I keep moving, almost break into a jog, too aware of how exposed I am under the harsh blue streetlights. A siren blares somewhere behind me, and I want to disappear into the cracks of the city. The man calls out again, louder, but I don’t turn around.
At the next intersection, the world crowds in: pedestrians, traffic, the sweet relief of anonymity.
I force myself to slow down. I try to look casual, normal, like a woman who’s just worked too late and wants nothing more than takeout and sleep.
I think about ducking into a deli for the cameras, for the witnesses, but I just want to be home.
The subway is out of the question. I walk, winding through the familiar blocks toward my apartment, shoes pinching my toes, the night wind finding every gap in my coat. I keep checking over my shoulder.
Every time someone steps too close, I tense, ready to run, heart hammering in my throat.
I cross the avenue, nearly get clipped by a yellow cab.
The driver lays on the horn, curses, but I barely register it.
The city feels wrong, warped around the memory of that man’s eyes on me.
My phone buzzes again—another email, maybe, but I don’t look this time.
I just want to get home. I need walls, a lock, the illusion of safety.
By the time I reach my building, I’m sweating under my coat. My hands shake as I key in the entry code. I duck through the heavy glass door, double-check that no one’s followed, then rush up the stairs. Every echo on the tile sounds like a threat.
I fumble with my keys at the apartment door. It sticks. I nearly curse, jaw tight, then shove my way inside.
Clara’s voice hits me from the kitchen. “Whoa. What’s the rush?” She’s in sweatpants, face mask half dry, a mug of tea cradled in both hands. Her brows lift when she sees my face. “Em, everything good?”
I force my lips into a smile. “Yeah. Just been a long day.” I hang my bag on the hook, try to make my breathing sound less wild. I picture his face again, the line of his mouth, the scar on his jaw. The words he said— stay silent —throb behind my ribs.
Clara eyes me, skeptical. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I’m fine. Really.” My voice is steadier than I feel. I take off my coat, hang it up, fingers numb and clumsy. “Just tired. Sorry.”
She shrugs, lets it go. “Want tea?”
“I’m good.”
I retreat down the hall, ignoring the way she watches me. My room is small but mine: posters, stacks of books, one too many throw pillows on the bed. I lock the door—twist the bolt all the way—then lean my forehead against the cool wood.
My heart hasn’t slowed since the garage.
I consider calling someone. The police? What would I even say? “I saw a man with blood on his sleeve? He told me to keep quiet?”
I imagine the report, the way their eyes would glaze over. I picture the warnings from the company’s legal seminars: don’t get involved; don’t speak unless you have to.
I check the window. It’s dark out there, just the faint gold haze of city lights and shadows that might be anything. I pull my phone out again, thumb hovering over the call icon for my dad, for my boss, for anyone.
I can’t do it. The warning in that man’s voice was real, the promise of danger woven into every syllable.
Instead, I open my laptop. My fingers are clumsy on the keys. I pull up the secure work drive, scroll through today’s meeting roster.
Lutz, Chang, Stephenson, Rudenko. I click on the photo thumbnails, eyes darting back and forth between faces. I freeze when I see him—the man from the garage. Damien Rudenko.
I click into his profile, take in the stats: major shareholder, Russian background, rumored to own half the building.
I stare at the screen, the picture not doing justice to the threat he radiated in person. My breath fogs on the glass of my water bottle. I read his name again. Damien Rudenko. Not a monster from a spreadsheet, not a ghost. Real, solid, dangerous.
I close the laptop slowly. Lock it. Pull the covers up around my shoulders, even though I know sleep won’t come.