CHAPTER 51 - Elara
The glass tower of Olympus looked completely indifferent to our ruin.
It rose into the low London clouds like a shard of black ice, its polished obsidian facade reflecting the gray morning light.
At its base, Vance’s contractors were visible through the tinted glass of the lobby, their heavy tactical jackets a stark contrast to the sleek, minimalist marble around them.
They were looking down, monitoring the transit lines, waiting for a ping from the Southwark under-canals.
They never looked at the service elevator feeding into the underground loading dock.
“The biometric scanners on the main lift are active,” Sylas whispered, his voice a low vibration against my ear as we crouched in the shadow of a massive industrial waste bin in the concrete bay.
He had replaced his torn sweater with a heavy, oiled canvas jacket he’d pulled from the launch, the collar turned up against his jaw. I was wearing my damp black sweater, my left arm held stiffly against my stomach, the scuffed kindle tucked into the waistband of my jeans like a stolen weapon.
“But the freight lift doesn't use facial recognition,” I muttered, my teeth chattering slightly from the residual chill of the river. “It runs on a legacy rolling-code transponder. My father helped install the auxiliary power trunk for it.”
“I know,” Sylas said. He didn't look at me, but his hand closed over mine, his long fingers squeezing my cold knuckles with a fierce, grounding heat. “I never updated it. I kept it as a manual bypass.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy brass key and a hacked security fob.
He inserted the key into the rusted control box beside the heavy, industrial steel doors of the freight lift.
The lock turned with a grinding clunk. The doors groaned open, revealing a raw, unpolished cage of corrugated iron and exposed cables.
We stepped inside, and Sylas slammed the manual lever down.
The lift lurched violently, the old cable screeching against the pulley as it began its slow, heavy ascent up the spine of the tower.
Ten floors. Twelve. Fifteen. The numbers didn't flash on a digital screen; the floors simply blurred past the steel mesh of the cage in a monotonous rhythm of concrete and shadow.
My heart was slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every inch we climbed took us deeper into the trap, straight into the apex of the pyramid. The mechanical rattle of the cables was deafening, filling the narrow shaft with a terrifying countdown.
Suddenly, the weight of the last week, the memory of his mouth against mine in the dark, and the sheer madness of what we were about to do pressed down on me. I looked at the sharp, locked profile of his jaw. If we failed, if Vance was waiting at the top, this iron cage would be our tomb.
I reached out, my fingers wrapping tightly around the wet fabric of his canvas sleeve.
“Sylas,” I said, my voice cutting through the noise of the machinery.
He turned his head, his gray eyes fixed on mine, heavy with that fierce, protective focus. “Stay behind me when the doors open, Elara. I’ll clear the foyer first.”
“Sylas, listen to me,” I interrupted, stepping closer, forcing him to look at me, really look at me. “I don't know how this is going to end. I don't know what's waiting for us behind those doors, but I need to say this now, in case everything goes wrong.”
He froze, his brow furrowing as he felt the sudden, desperate shift in my energy. “Elara—”
“No, let me speak,” I breathed, my hand sliding up his arm to cup the side of his neck, my thumb resting against his frantic, racing pulse.
“For a long time, I thought I was entirely alone in the dark, just chasing the ghost of my father's work. I built walls so high I thought no one could ever reach me. And then you crashed into my life. You’re arrogant, you're infuriating, and you think you can calculate the whole world. But you held me when I was bleeding, and you stayed in the mud with me when you could have run.”
Tears of raw, unadulterated truth pricked the corners of my eyes, but my voice didn't waver.
“I love you, Sylas. I love you so much it terrifies me, because it's the one thing I can't control, the one thing I don't want to calculate. I needed you to know that. Whatever happens up there.”
Sylas’s whole body went completely rigid.
His gray eyes widened, a look of profound, overwhelming shock shattering his mask, followed instantly by a dark, fiercely vulnerable hunger.
His hands shot up, his long fingers catching my waist, his chest heaving as he leaned down, his lips parting as if to pour his entire soul into a response—
Thud.
The freight lift groaned to a violent, sudden halt. The numbers on the mechanical dial locked at seventeen.
The heavy iron doors slid back with a loud, metallic screech, exposing the bright, clinical light of the penthouse foyer.
Sylas’s words died in his throat. The corporate strategist slammed back into place by sheer necessity, though his fingers gave my waist one last, desperate, fracturing squeeze before he forced himself to let go. There was no time to breathe, no time to answer. The mission was already moving.
“Stay close,” he growled, his voice rougher, deeper, vibrating with everything he hadn't been able to say.
We broke out of the lift and onto the plush white rug of the penthouse.
The main terminal unpooled in a massive column of amber light the moment I plugged the Kindle into the fiber trunk beneath the marble desk. Lines of code spun through the air, the master registry mirroring into our drive at an incredible speed.