Chapter 3
THREE
Talia
STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL
The kitchen knife rests across my thighs; eight inches of German steel that’s supposed to make me feel safe.
For the first hour, I huddle behind Nathan’s boxes, back pressed against the wall where I can monitor both the front door and the hallway.
Every sound in the building makes my heart stutter.
Mrs. Patterson’s television murmurs through the walls—some crime drama with dramatic music and shouted dialogue.
Mr. Delgado’s heavy footsteps echo on the stairs as he leaves for his night shift at the hospital.
Normal sounds that should be comforting.
Instead, they feel like threats closing in.
My phone shows 11:47 PM. Almost three and a half hours since I called Cerberus. Their operative should arrive soon.
Should.
The knife handle grows slick with sweat.
My legs cramp from staying in one position too long, muscles screaming for movement.
One USB drive is tucked in my bra, warm against my skin, slightly damp.
Victor’s original is hidden in my sock. Unnecessary with several versions uploaded to servers, but the duplicate physical copy provides some form of relief.
Seventy-three deaths compressed into silicon and plastic.
I can’t stay frozen forever.
Moving carefully, silently, I unfold from my hiding spot. My laptop waits on the kitchen counter where I left it. The need to understand what Victor died for overwhelms the need to hide.
The files bloom across my screen—seventy-three deaths documented in meticulous detail.
Medical records. Falsified trial data. Internal emails discussing “acceptable losses” as if they’re talking about quarterly earnings rather than human lives.
The pattern spreads across five pharmaceutical companies, all subsidiaries of Nexus Holdings.
Morrison died for this. Victor died for this.
The statistical probability that I’ll survive the night is decreasing by the minute.
My fingers fly across keys, uploading encrypted backups to servers in three countries. The progress bar crawls—67%, 74%, 81%—
The doorknob turns.
No warning. No footsteps in the hall. Just the soft scrape of metal on metal as someone tests the lock.
The deadbolt disengages with a whisper.
Three men flow into my apartment like oil spreading across water—silent, inevitable, deadly. Black tactical gear absorbs the kitchen light. Suppressors already threaded onto their weapons. They move in as one, overlapping coverage, no blind spots.
My hand finds the knife.
I throw it.
The blade whistles past the lead man’s ear, embedding into the wall with a solid thunk. He doesn’t even flinch.
“Impressive reflexes, Ms. Singh.” His voice is cultured, amused. The kind of voice that belongs at charity galas, not home invasions. “Though your aim needs work.”
My hand finds a second knife from the block. This one I keep, backing deeper into the kitchen. My breath comes too fast, too shallow.
“We’re here for a simple exchange.” He takes a measured step forward, his partners fanning out to cut off angles. “You have something that belongs to our employers.”
Seventy-three dead people. Falsified data. Premeditated murder.
Words crowd my throat. Won’t emerge. They never do when fear takes over. My throat constricts, a physical lock turning in my larynx.
“The drive, Ms. Singh. We know you have it.”
I throw the second knife. This one catches the shoulder of the man on the left, tearing through fabric but not flesh. He adjusts his stance, unperturbed. Probably wearing body armor under that tactical gear.
“That’s enough of that.” The leader’s tone hardens. “Three trained operatives versus one analyst. No exits. No backup. I can see you calculating, measuring distances. But the math doesn’t work in your favor.”
He’s right. But Nathan’s boxes tower between us—twenty boxes of our dead relationship, filled with his books and kitchen gadgets and the life we built that he dismantled with a paralegal named Rebecca.
I slam my shoulder into the stack.
Boxes cascade in an avalanche of bubble wrap and breaking glass.
The espresso machine I bought Nathan for Christmas crashes across the tiles with a sharp crack that makes one of the men flinch.
Books scatter like dead birds, pages fluttering.
The smell of cardboard dust and stale cologne rises—Nathan’s scent still clinging to his belongings like a ghost.
In the chaos, I bolt for the bedroom.
I slam the door shut behind me. My hands shake as I wedge the security bar under the knob—stupid, should’ve had it at the front door where it belongs. The door shudders immediately as someone tests it. Then silence that’s worse than the assault.
“Break it down.”
The window. Paint-sealed and humidity-swollen from Chicago summers. My mother’s silver jewelry box is heavy in my hands—ornate and solid, the weight of family heirlooms and old money. I smash it against the glass.
Once. Spiderweb cracks appear.
Twice. The cracks spread like lightning.
The door frame groans behind me, wood splintering under sustained force.
Third strike. Glass explodes outward.
Chicago night floods in—diesel exhaust sharp in my nose, the promise of coming rain, garlic from the Thai place three blocks over. And below, five floors of empty space yawning like an open mouth.
The fire escape squats outside like a rusted skeleton, metal corroded by decades of weather.
Five floors.
My body locks, feet rooting to the floor.
Seven years old. Mom calling from below: “Get down from there!” The garage roof rough under my palms. Reaching for the yellow Frisbee. The shingle sliding. That moment when solid becomes air. The ground rushing up—
The door crashes inward.
No choice. No time.
I squeeze through the jagged glass, feeling it catch my shirt, slice through the fabric—hot line of pain across my thigh.
The fire escape groans under my sudden weight, rust flakes raining down—metallic taste mixing with the copper tang of fear.
The metal is cold under my palms, gritty with decades of Chicago winters.
The texture bites into skin already cut from the glass.
Don’t look down.
I look down.
The alley yawns like a throat ready to swallow me. Dumpsters look like toys five stories below. My vision tilts, vertigo hitting like a physical blow. Seven years old again. Falling. The snap of bone—
“She’s going up!”
Up. The roof. The door to the internal stairs should be there. Has to be there.
My legs shake as I climb, each rung protesting under my weight.
Bolts grind in crumbling brick. The structure sways—or maybe that’s me.
Blood from my cut palms makes the metal slippery.
The wind picks up, whipping hair across my face, carrying the smell of rain and rot and city exhaust. Something sharp like ozone means a storm is coming.
The roof access appears. I haul myself over the edge, grit biting through my jeans. Chicago sprawls in every direction—millions of lights, each one a life that has no idea mine is ending.
The rooftop is a graveyard of dead technology.
HVAC units squat like tombs, humming their mechanical prayers.
A forest of TV antennas from the analog age juts toward the sky.
Rusted lawn chairs circle a Weber grill that hasn’t seen flame in years.
Beer bottles scattered like offerings. Some broken.
A child’s tricycle in the corner, its red paint peeling, abandoned by someone who moved away or grew up and forgot it existed.
The door to the internal stairs is exactly where I calculated.
But there’s no handle on the outside. Of course not. Fire code requires exterior access, but building owners ignore regulations until someone dies. Building code violations everywhere except the one that would save me.
Metal scrapes behind me. They’re coming.
I sprint for cover, wedging myself between the water tower and an HVAC unit.
The metal is warm from the day’s heat, humming with mechanical life.
Pigeon droppings and rust coat everything—the smell thick and organic, ammonia and decay mixing with hot metal and old grease.
I pull out my phone; fingers slick with blood.
“Status?” The Cerberus operator’s voice is clipped, professional.
“Roof.” The word scrapes out of my constricted throat. “Three men. Armed—”
“Two minutes out. Stay alive.”
One hundred twenty seconds. One hundred twenty reasons to keep breathing.
“Spread out.” The leader’s voice carries on the wind. “She’s here.”
Footsteps fan across the rooftop. Methodical. Patient. They know I’m trapped.
Ninety seconds.
A bottle clinks against concrete. A chair scrapes.
Seventy seconds.
A shadow falls across my hiding spot.
“Behind the water tower!”
Rough hands grab my arms, yanking me into the open.
My phone flies from my grip, screen shattering against concrete like ice on stone.
The stocky one wrenches my arms behind my back.
His breath reeks of coffee and cigarettes.
His grip is iron, fingers digging into my biceps hard enough to bruise.
My shoulders scream, muscles stretching at angles they weren’t designed for.
The leader approaches with measured steps, adjusting his suppressor with the same care someone might clean their glasses. Up close, he smells expensive—cologne, leather, and spice. But underneath, gunpowder and violence.
“The drive.”
I stare at him. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out but a wheeze. My throat constricts—that familiar strangling sensation. Nathan’s voice echoing in my head: You dissect life instead of living it. You’re like a computer pretending to be human.
His fist drives into my stomach.