36. Amiyah
Chapter thirty-six
Amiyah
Abrushed matte steel courier sign glows beneath warm architectural lights.
Up front, the business handles routine package drop-offs, but the real infrastructure runs forty feet down.
I slide my car into the subterranean bay behind the building, killing the engine in absolute, climate-controlled silence.
The air down here is scrubbed clean of street exhaust, leaving only a faint, expensive hint of ozone and cedarwood.
I pop the trunk, haul the matte-black carbon-fiber case toward the private security vestibule, and press my thumb to the sapphire reader plate. The titanium service door disengages with a frictionless hum, sliding open to reveal a private lift finished in quilted cream leather and brushed brass.
I step in. The doors close, and the floor drops out from under my feet.
Thirty-seven seconds of absolute, glass-smooth descent. The air pressure pops in my ears twice before the lift settles at the bottom of the shaft, my breath ghosting into a thin plume.
The doors open.
Polished micro-concrete floors absorb the sound of my soles. Overhead LEDs pulse at a constant, flat brightness, and the silent, heavy air feels entirely stripped of moisture, tasting faintly of cold metal and sterile rooms.
I navigate past three unlabeled intersection points, following the clean, silent corridors straight to Rook’s door.
He’s already spinning around in his ergonomic mesh chair before I even cross the threshold, a bright, welcoming grin plastered across his face.
His workstation is a monolithic block of brushed stainless steel bolted seamlessly to the floor, three curved ultra-wide monitors arranged in a shallow arc, displaying inventory data scrolling too fast to read.
Rook is small—five-four, maybe—with a vibrant, energetic build and an expression that looks like he just chugged three espressos and loves every second of his job.
He’s wearing black-framed designer glasses and designer clothes, his fingers tapping an upbeat rhythm against the desk.
“Lane! Hey!” he says, practically bouncing in his seat. “Morning! Or well, technically night, but who's counting? What can I do for you today?”
“Hey, Rook. I need some options,” I say, leaning against the edge of the steel desk. “Nothing that fires. Nothing that requires a cleanup crew. Nothing with a signature.”
Rook doesn’t skip a beat. His grin widens, eyes lighting up as his fingers stop tapping. He leans back in his chair, studying me for a beat before a delighted spark hits his face.
“Oh, I love a creative brief,” he beams, rubbing his hands together. “Hold on, I think I might have a couple of things that would be absolute perfection for you.”
His chair rolls back on silent casters, and he practically skips through a side door into the armory annex. I hear the soft click of a biometric lock, the cheerful clatter of custom-milled drawers sliding open, and then he’s back, setting two items on the stainless steel table with a flourish.
The first item is a rollerball perfume bottle in blush pink glass. The cap is matte rose gold, and the liquid inside catches the overhead lights with a faint, opalescent shimmer. Rook picks it up between two fingers like it’s a priceless jewel.
“Presenting Lullaby,” he says, his tone practically theatrical.
“Synthetic neurotoxin, designed exclusively for oral ingestion. Totally odorless, tasteless, and completely water-soluble! Effective dose is point-two milliliters—two full turns of the calibrated cap delivers it straight to the dropper. Drop it into a drink, and within forty-five seconds they’re out cold; full respiratory arrest hits within ninety.
The best part? It metabolizes completely within six hours into harmless organic byproducts, leaving zero trace in a toxicology screen. ”
He unscrews the vial with a flourish, revealing a precise glass dropper tip nestled inside. “For effortless, undetectable consumption.”
He sets it down with a light tap and picks up the second item.
A pink-and-gold compact. It catches the overhead LEDs, finished in a soft, pale pink shimmer with subtle gold accents across the enameled lid—polished and chic enough for a young adult’s vanity without crossing into tacky territory.
Rook flips it open with a satisfying snap of his thumb.
Inside, instead of powder, the casing houses high-density contact nodes rigged to a micro-capacitor array.
“And item number two!” he announces, practically glowing.
“A stun compact! Delivers a high-voltage, low-amperage shock designed to drop a target instantly on contact. The gold latch acts as the primary contact switch—press it firmly against skin or thin fabric, and it discharges five hundred thousand volts straight through the nervous system, causing immediate neuromuscular lockup and total unconsciousness. No burns, zero forensic signature, and it recharges via a standard USB-C port hidden right inside the hinge!”
He snaps the compact closed with a soft click and pushes it right beside the perfume bottle.
“They look like they came straight from a mall makeup counter,” I say.
Rook grins, flashing straight white teeth. “That’s the beauty of it, right? High-end aesthetic, high-end lethality.”
I pick up both items, turning them over in my hands. The perfume bottle is cool and smooth; the compact fits perfectly in my palm.
“Will they work through clothing?” I ask.
“The stun compact requires skin contact or very thin fabric like a single layer of cotton,” Rook chirps, leaning forward on his elbows. “The perfume requires skin contact or ingestion. Easy peasy!”
I nod, dropping both items into the outer pocket of my backpack. They settle against the nylon with a soft clink.
“Thanks, Rook. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Anytime, Lane! You know where to find me.” He’s already spinning back toward his monitors, fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard with renewed enthusiasm. “Have fun out there!”
Phhhhsh. Sure. If murdering the only guy I've ever actually liked is considered having fun.
Shouldering my bag, I head straight for Penelope’s office.
Penelope is hunched over her desk, one hand welded to a half-empty energy drink while she tears through a server log like she’s trying to punch her way out of a paper bag. The air in her office hums with the low-grade electrical anxiety of three monitors straining a single overloaded power strip.
A ring light stands mounted in the corner, powered off but still pointing at her chair like it’s waiting for its moment. A stuffed axolotl wearing a tiny purple beret sits atop the highest monitor, staring down at the chaos with judicial disappointment.
Penelope doesn’t look up. Her fingers keep hammering out a percussive rhythm on her mechanical keyboard.
“You’re here early,” she says.
“I was at Rook’s.”
That gets her attention. Her hands pause, and she swivels her chair toward me, one eyebrow arched. “Already? Jesus, Lane, the sun isn’t even up.”
“Some of us have class at eight.”
“Some of us have the basic human decency to sleep between attempted assassinations.” She takes a long pull from her energy drink and sets it down with a soft clack. “So. What’d you get?”
I drop into the folding chair across from her desk. “Discreet delivery. Two options. Neither leaves a signature.”
“Good.” She nods. “Smart. Clean approach, minimal exposure.”
She turns back to her screen. For ninety seconds, the room fills with nothing but the hum of cooling fans.
Then Penelope closes her laptop with a hard plastic snap that cuts through the white noise.
“Amiyah?”
“What’s up?”
She leans forward, elbows on the desk, dropping her usual sardonic cushion.
“Why didn’t you pull the trigger?”
The question lands between us with the weight of something that’s been sitting in the room since I walked in. I feel my spine lock straight, the practiced deflection forming on my tongue.
“I told you. The angle was—”
“Bullshit.” She doesn’t raise her voice.
“Complete, unadulterated bullshit. The roof was clear. The sightline was perfect. Windage was zeroed. You had him in your scope for five minutes straight before you came over the open comms with a structural pillar excuse that wouldn’t pass muster in middle school. ”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Penelope crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair. “The twins heard it, obviously. They took your word for it, assumed it was just a bad angle and a mechanical snag, and packed it in. But I know better.” Her eyes narrow. “So I’m going to ask you again. Why didn’t you pull the trigger?”
The room feels smaller. The three monitors hum. The axolotl stares.
“I have feelings for him,” I say.
The words come out stripped, completely bare of defense.
Penelope’s expression moves through surprise, concern, and a flicker of sympathy before settling into careful neutrality.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way,” I continue, the words tumbling out. “He was just supposed to be fun. Something uncomplicated. Not—” I stop, swallow hard. “Not this. But I'm not an amateur. I know what I have to do. I just... I can't afford a mess. I'm too close to him.”
Penelope’s fingers tap once, twice against the edge of her desk—a slow, thinking rhythm. Then she nods, once. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” She picks up her energy drink, takes a sip, and sets it down. “So what’s the play?”
The pivot is so smooth I almost miss it.
“The play is clean. Untraceable. Completely disconnected from Amiyah Lane, law student,” I say, my voice falling back into the precise cadence I use for briefs.
“If Jae—I mean Kai—whoever the hell he really is dies messily—if there’s any thread connecting his death to someone he’s been seen with all semester—my cover cracks.
Everything I’ve built goes with it. The bar exam is at the end of this semester.
My record is clean. This has to stay that way. ”
I lean forward. “A rooftop sniper shot brings the whole damn world down on us.
Ballistics, clean-up crews, an investigation that turns the campus inside out.
And where am I going to be? Sitting right in Constitutional Law with my color-coded casebook tabs, trying to pretend I don't know the exact twist rate of a LaRue barrel while the feds tear through the quad.”
Penelope’s nail taps against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“So this isn’t hesitation,” she says. “This is professionalism.”
“Yes.”
“Planning.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re smart.”
“Because I’m smart.”
She studies me for a long moment, her eyes sharp and perceptive. I hold her gaze, breathing steady, every muscle committed to absolute certainty.
Penelope nods. Decisive.
“Alright,” she says. “Smart play. I’m in.” She flips her laptop open. “Keep me updated on the approach. I’ll handle the alibi architecture on my end.”
“Thanks, Pen.”
“Don’t mention it.” She’s already typing. “And Amiyah?”
I pause at the door. “Yeah?”
Her eyes stay on the monitor. “The next time you catch feelings for a target, maybe lead with that instead of making me drag it out of you like an impacted wisdom tooth.”
I don’t answer. I grab my bag, feeling the weight of the pink rollerball and the gold-accented stun compact nestled at the bottom among my lip gloss and casebook tabs, and step out into the hallway without looking back.
The morning light is starting to bleed through the windows at the far end of the corridor, turning the linoleum pale gold.
My first class is in seventy-three minutes.
I have a constitutional law reading I haven’t touched and a coffee order waiting at Beaned & Brew’d with my name misspelled on the cup.
I reach the private lift and press the button. The doors slide open with a soft hydraulic sigh.
“Smart” is carrying a lot of heavy lifting right now. It’s holding the space between the clean, calculated defense I just sold to Penelope and what I actually felt when I watched his sexy, and completely naked ass through my crosshairs.
And a very nice ass it was indeed.
Damn it, Amiyah. No. No dirty thoughts.
The lift ascends, carrying me back to the surface. I adjust the strap of my bag, feeling the subtle shift of the compact inside, and think about how easy it would be to believe my own lie if I just keep saying it long enough.