Chapter 37
The screens came back to life.
Sarah's heart was still hammering from watching Griff fight to reach her. Now he lay pinned under three guards, blood running from his temple, eyes finding hers across the chaos. Still conscious. Still trying to protect her even when he couldn't protect himself.
The Stillwater logo shattered across every display. Financial records cascaded down—wire transfers, coded authorizations, forty-seven death sentences documented in sterile banking language.
Then the smell hit.
The acidic stench of vomit filled the ballroom as Doc's ipecac took full effect.
"Bear Spray, stay calm." Ronan's voice in her ear, steady as steel. "We're moving in now."
The crowd surged toward the exits, designer suits and thousand-dollar shoes pushing, shoving, climbing over chairs. Someone screamed. A table overturned, sending silverware flying. Crystal shattered against marble.
"I've got eyes on you, Bear Spray," Maya said through comms. "Northwest corner, moving through the kitchen."
"Deke's at the main entrance," Izzy added. "Axel's covering the stage."
Sarah's wrists burned against the zip-ties. The guards flanking her had loosened their grips, torn between duty and disgust as their senator retched on live television. But not enough to break free.
That's when she saw David.
He stood frozen in the VIP section, the only official not sick, watching the screens display his financial signature on every murder authorization. His Treasury credentials hung around his thin neck. While others fled or threw up, he stared at the evidence, face draining of color.
Then he bolted.
Not toward the stage to help. Not maintaining his cover. Heading for the exit.
Coward.
“David’s escaping,” she practically yelled into comms.
“On it,” a female voice responded. "Pemberton's rabbiting. Southeast exit."
"I don't have an angle," Kenji responded. "Too many civilians."
Federal agents burst through the main doors. "FBI! Everyone remain calm!"
But calm was impossible. The ballroom had become a war zone of fleeing elites, and exposed secrets. Buckley tried to scream "DEEP FAKE" between retches.
An ambassador's wife fainted. Someone pulled a fire alarm, adding to the chaos.
David was almost at the exit.
Sarah's hands twisted against the zip-ties. She needed to stop him. He'd designed the system that would have killed forty-seven people. He'd betrayed her, used her, tried to have her murdered. And now he was going to escape while everyone focused on Buckley.
Sarah stared at her bound hands. The zip-ties were too tight to slip. But Griff had shown her another way, one that made her stomach turn just thinking about it.
"Doc, talk me through thumb dislocation," she said.
"Are you serious?" Doc's voice sharpened. "That's not—"
"David's getting away. I need out. Now."
A pause. Then Doc's clinical tone: "Sharp inward twist. Don't hesitate. It has to be fast and decisive."
Sarah's whole body rebelled against the idea. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she positioned her thumb at that unnatural angle. Through the chaos, she saw David reach the door.
"Bear Spray, we're thirty seconds out," Ronan said.
Too late. David would be gone.
She took three quick breaths, fighting nausea at what she was about to do.
"On three," Doc coached. "One... two..."
Sarah wrenched her thumb inward with violent force.
The pain was beyond description—white-hot agony shooting up her arm. Her vision grayed. Bile rose in her throat. But her mangled hand slipped free, skin tearing against the plastic.
The guard noticed too late. "The woman!"
Sarah was already moving, cradling her destroyed hand, using adrenaline before shock set in. But she didn't run toward Griff or away from danger.
She went straight for David.
"David!" Her voice cut through the chaos.
He froze at the door, hand on the handle. Turned to see her coming, injured but unstoppable.
The woman he'd called "too intense" had just dislocated her own thumb to stop him. "Going somewhere?"
On the screens, Finn's voice narrated: "Financial architecture by David Pemberton, Treasury Department. Every death warrant bears his digital signature."
The FBI agents were closer now, seeing David at the exit, Sarah confronting him.
"This isn't—I was investigating—" David stammered.
"FBI, meet David Pemberton,” she announced, in case David wasn’t sufficiently recognizable. “David, meet the FBI."
More evidence flooded the screens above the stage—David's government emails, his meeting schedules with Stillwater, his authorization codes on every single death payment.
"You're done," she told him. "The kill switches are already disabled. All of them. Your murders aren't happening."
His face went even paler as the implications hit. No leverage. No dead man's switch.
A well-built agent stepped close, weapon drawn. "Sir, step away from the door."
David's hand tightened on the handle. For a moment, Sarah thought he might actually run. Make them shoot him rather than face justice.
Then Buckley's voice rang out from the stage, raw and desperate: "YOU SAID IT WAS PERFECT!"
Everyone turned. The senator had crawled to his knees, stained suit, eyes wild with rage. He was staring at David with pure hatred. "You said the system was untraceable."
David raised his hands, backing away from both the door and his employer. "Senator, please—"
"Forty years of work." Buckley's hand moved to his jacket.
Through her earbud, Sarah heard multiple voices: "He's reaching—"
"Is that—"
"Oh no—"
Buckley pulled out a pistol, chrome gleaming under the ballroom lights.