CHAPTER 20
Callum
The smell of pulverized concrete and expanding gases from the breaching charge is thick in the air, burning the back of my throat.
Elias Vance is frozen.
He is a man who builds his power on distance. He gives orders from boardrooms, insulated by layers of security, money, and concrete. He is not accustomed to the violence arriving directly at his feet.
I don't look at him. My eyes are locked entirely on Gemma.
She is leaning heavily against the edge of the table, her left hand pressed hard against her side. The heavy tactical jacket has been ripped open, exposing the dark, wet stain spreading rapidly across her jeans. The stitches tore when they threw her against the table.
My heart, which has been beating a frantic, agonizing rhythm against my ribs since the moment I heard Ben’s voice on the radio, suddenly goes perfectly, lethally cold.
"Callum," Gemma gasps, her voice breaking on my name.
"I’m here," I say.
I keep the rifle raised with my right hand, stepping toward her. I wrap my left arm around her waist, pulling her away from the table and tucking her securely behind me. She presses her face into the back of my tactical vest, her fingers gripping the nylon straps with desperate strength.
I finally turn my attention to Elias Vance.
He has recovered from the initial shock of the breach. He straightens the cuffs of his bespoke suit, his eyes darting to the dead mercenaries on the floor, then back to me.
"Callum Reed," Elias says, his voice remarkably steady for a man standing in a room full of corpses. "I must admit, I am surprised. I was told you were pinned down at Marcus Thorne’s estate."
"Marcus Thorne is dead," I state flatly.
Elias blinks, processing the information. The loss of Marcus doesn't seem to bother him; it simply changes his calculations.
"A pity," Elias murmurs. "But ultimately irrelevant. You are standing three floors beneath a building heavily populated by my security personnel. You may have breached this room, but you will not walk out of this garage alive."
"I am not interested in walking out," I say, taking a step toward him.
"You are a professional, Callum. Let us negotiate.
" Elias raises his hands, palms open, adopting the posture of a reasonable businessman.
"The girl has the ledger. I want the money returned to the syndicate accounts.
You want to leave this building with her.
We can come to an arrangement that satisfies both objectives. "
I stop on the opposite side of the metal table.
"You ordered your men to break her fingers," I say, my voice dropping to a low, quiet register.
Elias frowns slightly, as if the detail is entirely beneath his notice. "It was an interrogation tactic. A necessary pressure to secure the password. It was nothing personal."
"It was entirely personal."
I don't negotiate. I don't ask for the exit codes.
I raise the M4 and fire a single round directly into Elias Vance’s right kneecap.
The suppressed gunshot is a sharp crack in the acoustic room. Elias screams, a high, reedy sound of absolute agony, and collapses onto the white tile floor. He clutches his shattered knee, his expensive suit instantly soaking up the blood.
Gemma flinches behind me, burying her face deeper into my vest, but she doesn't tell me to stop.
I walk around the table, standing over the syndicate boss.
"You are going to give me the override code for the primary elevator," I tell him, pointing the barrel of the rifle at his left knee.
"Go to hell," Elias spits, his face pale and sweating. "If you kill me, the entire syndicate will hunt you. There will be nowhere on this earth you can hide."
"They are already hunting me," I remind him. "And they have no money to pay their contractors. You are bankrupt, Elias. You have no power."
I shift the red dot sight to his left knee.
"Wait!" Elias gasps, holding his hands up.
The polished, cultured facade is completely gone, replaced by the raw, pathetic instinct of a coward trying to survive.
"The code is 8-4-9-2. It locks the elevator to the executive override.
It will take you directly to the ground floor garage without stopping. "
"Thank you."
I shift the barrel up and put a bullet through his head.
The room falls completely silent.
I lower the rifle, letting it hang from the sling. I turn around to face Gemma.
She is staring at the body of Elias Vance. She is trembling, her breathing shallow and fast, but she doesn't look away. She is processing the violence. She is accepting it.
"Can you walk?" I ask, stepping toward her.
She looks up at me. "You found me. How did you find me?"
"I put a secondary GPS tracker in the lining of the tactical jacket I gave you," I say, reaching out to gently touch the uninjured side of her waist. "I didn't trust the van. I didn't trust the route. I needed a failsafe."
She stares at me, her eyes wide. "You tracked the jacket."
"I tracked you." I look down at the dark stain spreading across her jeans. "You are bleeding. We need to move."
"Ben," she says suddenly, grabbing my arm. "Callum, they hit Ben. He was bleeding in the front seat of the van. I don't know if he’s alive."
"Ben is alive," I assure her, pulling her arm over my shoulder to support her weight. "He was the one who pulled the GPS coordinates from your jacket while I was extracting from the Hamptons. He is currently waiting for us in a secondary vehicle three blocks from here."
The relief that washes over her face is absolute. She lets out a shaky breath, leaning her weight heavily against my side.
"Okay," she whispers. "Let’s get out of this basement."
I guide her out of the interrogation room, stepping over the dead mercenaries in the doorway. The hallway is still filled with the gray smoke from the breaching charge. The fire alarms haven't triggered; the soundproofing in the basement contained the explosion.
We reach the private elevator bank.
I punch the code Elias gave me into the keypad: 8-4-9-2 .
The digital display turns green. The heavy metal doors slide open.
I pull Gemma inside, pressing the button for the ground floor. The doors close, sealing us in the small, brightly lit box. The elevator begins to rise, the mechanical hum loud in the silence.
I look at Gemma.
She is leaning against the metal handrail, her eyes closed, her face completely drained of color. The adrenaline that kept her conscious during the interrogation is fading fast, leaving her body to deal with the shock of the torn stitches.
I shrug the M4 carbine off my shoulder, letting it clatter to the floor of the elevator.
I step into her space, wrapping my arms around her. I pull her flush against my chest, being careful not to put pressure on her left side. She doesn't hesitate. She buries her face in my neck, her arms wrapping around my waist, holding onto me as if I am the only solid thing left in the world.
"I thought you were dead," she whispers, her voice breaking. "When the radio went silent... I thought they killed you."
"I told you I was coming back," I murmur, burying my face in her dark hair.
"I know." She tightens her grip on my shirt. "But the math was really bad, Callum."
I let out a harsh, breathy sound that might be a laugh. Even now, bleeding and exhausted, she is calculating the odds.
"The math doesn't matter," I say, kissing the top of her head.
The elevator chimes, signaling our arrival at the ground floor.
I pull back, picking up the M4 from the floor. "Stay behind me."
The doors slide open.
The underground parking garage is quiet. The black SUV that brought Gemma here is parked near the exit ramp, empty. The syndicate’s security detail is likely still upstairs in the corporate offices, unaware that their boss is dead in the basement.
We move quickly across the concrete, heading for the pedestrian exit stairwell.
Every step Gemma takes is a struggle. She is limping heavily, her breath hissing through her teeth. I keep my arm tightly around her waist, practically carrying her up the single flight of concrete stairs to the street level.
I push the heavy fire door open.
The cold city air hits us instantly. We step out into a dirty alleyway in downtown Manhattan. The noise of the city—the distant sirens, the hum of traffic, the rumble of the subway beneath the pavement—is deafening after the silence of the bunker.
"Three blocks," I tell her, checking the street corners.
"I can make it," she says, gritting her teeth.
We walk down the alley, merging onto the busy sidewalk. Nobody looks twice at us. In New York, a man in dirty clothes supporting a limping woman is just another piece of the background noise.
We turn the corner onto 43rd Street.
Parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant is a battered, silver Toyota Camry.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, holding a bloody rag to the side of his head, is Ben.
He sees us approaching and immediately pushes the passenger door open from the inside.
I guide Gemma into the backseat, helping her lie down across the worn fabric. She curls up instantly, pulling her knees toward her chest. I shut the door and climb into the front passenger seat.
"Drive," I say.
Ben doesn't ask questions. He throws the Camry into gear and pulls out into the heavy city traffic.
"You look like hell," Ben mutters, glancing at me. The left side of his face is swollen, and the blood on his forehead has dried into a dark crust.
"You don't look much better," I reply, keeping my eyes on the mirrors. "Did they track the van?"
"No. It was a random patrol," Ben says, his voice tight. "They recognized the plates from a BOLO the syndicate put out. They hit us at a red light. I tried to reverse, but they rammed the driver’s side door. Knocked me out cold. When I woke up, she was gone."
"You found the GPS signal."
"Yeah." Ben taps the ruggedized laptop sitting open on the center console. "I tracked the jacket to the underground garage. I knew I couldn't breach it, so I called you."
"You did good, Ben."
It is a rare compliment, and Ben knows it. He nods once, his grip on the steering wheel relaxing slightly.
"What about Marcus?" Ben asks.
"Dead."
"And the guy who took Gemma?"
"Elias Vance," I say. "Also dead."
Ben lets out a low whistle. "You really burned the whole house down."
"I told you I would." I look back over my shoulder at the backseat.
Gemma is awake, her dark eyes watching me from the shadows of the floorboard. She looks exhausted, but the raw panic is gone. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the small, black encrypted drive, holding it up so I can see it.
She didn't give it to them. Even when they were breaking her open, she held onto the only leverage we had.
I reach back, taking the drive from her fingers.
Our hands brush.
"Sleep," I tell her softly.
She closes her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering sigh, and finally lets the exhaustion drag her under.
I turn back around, slipping the encrypted drive into my pocket.
"Where to?" Ben asks, navigating the heavy traffic toward the George Washington Bridge.
"We need a sterile medical facility," I say. "Her stitches tore. She needs a doctor who won't ask questions."
"I know a guy in Jersey," Ben says. "Ex-military trauma surgeon. He owes me a favor."
"Take us there."
I lean back against the headrest, closing my eyes for the first time in forty-eight hours.
The syndicate is bankrupt. Marcus Thorne is dead. Elias Vance is dead. The immediate threat has been neutralized. We are no longer being hunted by an army.
But as the adrenaline finally begins to drain from my system, leaving behind a heavy, aching exhaustion, I realize that the hardest part of this entire ordeal is just beginning.
I have spent my life operating in the dark. I don't know how to exist in the light. I don't know how to be the man she needs me to be when the shooting stops.
I look at the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of her sleeping face in the backseat.
"I am not going to die tomorrow. I am coming back to you."
I kept my promise.
Now, I have to figure out how to live with it.