The sound punched the air from her lungs. She knew that voice. He had invaded her and Liam’s dinner date, and he had known of her brother’s debt. It belonged to the handsome, blond man from the dinner weeks ago, the one who had materialized at her table the moment Liam had stepped away. Alexander Stern. No, Xander Stern. The name was a cold stone in her gut.
Her mind flashed the image: impeccable suit, a smile that didn’t touch his ice-blue eyes that looked over each part of her. The memory cut off, severed by his voice returning to the present. “Cat got your tongue? I’m disappointed. You were so much more articulate over wine.”
“Where is Lisa?” The words scraped out of her, raw.
“She’s currently… indisposed, but safe. And she’ll remain that way, provided you follow some very simple instructions. The first is this: you do not tell anyone about this call. Not your brooding keeper. Not his bloodied attack dog. Not the old man who brings the tea. If you so much as whisper my name, Lisa will experience pain you cannot conceive of. Do we understand each other?”
Elena’s fingers were numb. She could feel her own heartbeat in her temples. “What do you want?”
“Lisa’s backpack. The one she brought to visit you. I want it.”
She looked at the empty room in confusion. “She took it and left with it. I don’t have her bag here.”
“Unfortunately.” Stern’s sigh was one of patronizing disappointment. “She took *a* backpack. A lovely canvas number full of textbooks and something about flowers. Adorable, really. The backpack I want, the one with all her delightful little toys. I’m certain it’s still there with you.”
The floor seemed to tilt. Elena’s gaze shot across the dark room to the chair by the door. The olive canvas backpack was slumped against the leg, right where she and Lisa had dropped it before the shower, trying to escape the blood. She’d been in such a furious rush to leave… she must have grabbed Elena’s bag by mistake.
Elena pushed back the duvet, the cold air hitting her sweat-damp skin. She crossed the room on unsteady legs, the phone a dead weight against her ear. She crouched, her fingers finding the zipper of the black bag. It hissed open in the silence.
Inside, no books. The dim light from the window glinted off sleek, gunmetal-gray casings. A compact laptop. Several external hard drives. A tangle of cables and small, unidentifiable devices she’d seen Lisa drop earlier. The entire digital arsenal her friend had smuggled in to arm her.
“You have it,” Stern stated, no question in his tone.
“What’s on it?” Elena whispered.
“Nothing that concerns you. You will bring the laptop and the drives to me. For Lisa’s life. It’s a fair trade, don’t you think? Her expertise for her continued breathing.”
“Proof.” The word was a demand, brittle and sharp. “I need to see her. Now.”
“Of course. A modern problem requires a modern solution.” A second later, her phone buzzed with an incoming image. Elena pulled it from her ear, pressing the buttons to pull up the message. The small flip screen illuminated her face, casting her horror in a pale blue light.
It was Lisa. Taken from the front, in harsh, clinical lighting. She was slumped in a plain wooden chair, her wrists bound to the chair’s back with rope. She was stripped down to just her panties, her breasts shown bare. Her head lolled to the side, dark blue and pink hair obscuring part of her face. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, glassy. She could see her skin lightly glimmering with sweat.
“She was initially quite vocal,” Stern’s voice came back, conversational. “A lot of creative threats. It took her a bit to see reason. But Eros helped out a great deal. I’ll have to thank Thorn for his little invention—such a useful compound for encouraging… openness.”
Eros. Liam’s drug. The one that had been used on her. Nausea boiled up Elena’s throat, acrid and hot.
“You will bring the devices to the old pier warehouse, south dock. You have two hours. Come alone. Tell no one. If I see a shadow that isn’t yours, if I even suspect you’ve shared our little secret, Lisa will be gone forever. And don’t think that would be the end of it. A cute, clever little thing like her… I’d find good uses for her. My associates have such varied tastes.”
In the background, through the phone’s speaker, Elena heard a faint sound. A whimper. Then a low, unmistakable moan. It was Lisa’s voice, thick and slurred, devoid of fear or protest, just a hapless, drugged sound of sensation.
“Don’t you touch her!” Elena snarled into the phone, the force of it tearing from a place of pure, feral instinct. “You bastard, don’t you dare—”
The line went dead. The silence that followed was absolute, a vacuum that sucked all the sound from the world. She was left crouching on the floor, clutching the phone, the image of her bound and drugged friend burning into her retinas.
She stared at the open backpack. The items inside are now a ransom demand. A death sentence for Lisa if she refused, a betrayal of catastrophic proportions if she complied. Liam’s enemy had walked right through his security, had taken the one person she had left, and was now practically holding a knife to the fragile, impossible loyalty she felt for the man who owned her.
Her body began to shake. Not a tremble, but a deep, seismic rattle that started in her bones and vibrated out through her skin. The cold of the floor seeped up through her knees. The dark of the room pressed in, no longer safe, but watchful. He had told her not to tell anyone. The warning was a cage around her throat.
She looked at the clock. Two hours. The pier warehouse. Alone. The instructions were simple. The consequences were a yawning chasm on either side. She reached into the bag, her fingers closing around the cool, hard edge of the laptop. The weight of it was nothing. The weight of what it meant was crushing.
Elena Rossi sat on the floor in the dark, holding the instruments of her friend’s salvation and her own damnation, and began, very quietly, to plan a betrayal.
The shaking stopped.
No. I can’t just sit here and feel sorry. The cold floor, the dark room, the image of Lisa—they didn't disappear. They crystallised. They became fragments of art she had to piece back together. Elena Rossi, on her knees, began to process the puzzle.
Walking into the warehouse with the laptop was a death sentence. For her, certainly. For Lisa, probably. Stern didn’t trade; he took. He would take the devices, then take her and Lisa and use them at his leisure. The photo was proof of possession, not a guarantee of return. Her intelligence, the part Liam had taken and utilised, cut through the panic like a scalpel. It laid the variables bare: one hostage, one kidnapper of unknown numbers, one untrained civilian, two hours.
She stood. The movement was fluid, decisive. The laptop was placed carefully on her bed. She went to the closet, her hands not fumbling but selecting. Nothing tactical—that would raise suspicion. Nothing fragile—she needed to move. She chose dark, sleek jeans and a simple black long-sleeved top made of a soft, stretchy material. She knew it would cling without being overt. Distraction was a weapon, but it had to look like an accident. She pulled on boots, the leather snug around her ankles.
Back to the backpack. She emptied its contents onto the duvet. The laptop and hard drives she ignored—those were for show. Her fingers sifted through the strange arsenal. The lockpicking set Lisa had taught her with: a flat case of polished metal picks and tension wrenches. It went into her right front pocket, a hard rectangle against her thigh. The lip gloss tube. She uncapped it, confirming the two prongs hidden within. Stun gun. Left pocket. She pocketed the black device that had the thumb button. These went into her left pocket, making it bulge slightly. She redistributed, making it look less obvious.
She looked at the laptop. The bait. The symbol of her betrayal. She zipped it into the main compartment of the backpack, slung it over one shoulder, and took a final, breathless scan of the room. No note. No trace. Just a woman stepping out for air. That was the story she would sell.
She opened her door. The hallway was silent, washed in the faint, perpetual night-lighting of the manor. Her boots were quiet on the runner. Every sense was dialled to a piercing frequency. The hum of the HVAC. The groan of ancient timber. The weight of the tools in her pockets. She moved not like a thief, but like a woman who belonged—a calm, deliberate pace toward the main staircase.
The grand staircase yawned below her, a descent into the foyer's marble silence. She didn't take it. Instead, her boots pivoted on the runner, carrying her soundlessly to the carved oak door of Liam’s study. The brass handle was cold in the midnight chill. It turned without resistance under her palm.
Inside, the room was still and quiet. Moonlight sliced through a gap in the heavy drapes, painting a silver bar across the massive desk. It smelled of him here—expensive paper, hint of whisky, and that faint, clean scent of his skin. The familiarity was a punch to her gut. She crossed the Persian rug, her shadow a long, distorted thing stretching toward the monolithic desk.
The centre drawer was locked. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum counting down seconds she didn’t have. She fished the lockpick case from her right pocket, the metal cool against her sweating fingers. The tools felt alien, dangerous. She selected a tension wrench and a thin pick, her hands steadier than she felt. She inserted them, recalling Lisa’s quick, confident motions. She probed, listened for a click that seemed never to come. A bead of sweat traced her spine. Then, a subtle give. A soft, metallic snick. The lock surrendered.
She pulled the drawer open. Inside, neatly arranged, lay the expected: fountain pens, a letter opener, a sealed cigar. And tucked beside them, a revolver. It was blunt, brutal steel, not polished for show. She lifted it. The weight was shocking, a dense, deadly gravity that pulled her arm down. Her palm absorbed the cold. She broke it open, the cylinder swinging out with a smooth, oiled click. Six brass circles stared back, bullets seated snugly in their chambers. Full. She snapped it closed.
She stared at the weapon in her hand. The idea of pointing it, of pulling the trigger, of the noise and the recoil and the ruin it would make of a body—her stomach turned to ice. But the image of Lisa, bound and drugged, flashed behind her eyes, hotter than fear. She had to protect herself. She shoved the revolver into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back. The metal quickly warmed against her skin, and the hard ridge of the grip pressed into her spine. She pulled her long-sleeved top down over it. The fabric clung, betraying a faint, rectangular outline. It would have to do.
She closed the drawer. Turning, she fled the study, the ghost of Liam’s scent chasing her into the hall. The gun was a new, terrible weight, a counterbalance to the tech in her pockets. She was no longer just a woman going for air. She was armed. She was terrified. She walked toward the staircase, each step measured, the weapon a cold secret against her burning skin.
As she left the study, she started to work her way down the stairs towards the main door. Now she had to get out and find a way to the pier quickly.
“Miss Rossi?” The voice came from the shadowed archway leading to the servants’ wing, causing her to almost jump in surprise. Presley emerged, his tailcoat impeccable even at this hour, his face a mask of polite concern. How is he still awake at this hour? Elena questioned.
“Presley.” She kept walking, offering a tight, fleeting smile. “I’m just stepping out for a bit. I need some air. I’ll be back soon.”
He fell into step beside her, a silent escort. “At this hour? Forgive me, but Mr. Thorn has been most explicit regarding your safety. After the events of today, leaving the grounds is… ill-advised.”
She reached the grand foyer, the marble cold underfoot. She turned to face him, her expression one of strained patience. “I understand. I do. But I am not a prisoner, Presley. I am an employee. And right now, my head is pounding, and these walls are closing in. I need a few minutes outside the gate. To breathe. To think.” She adjusted the backpack strap, a casual gesture.
His grey eyes held hers. They were unreadable, but she watched as they missed nothing. The backpack. Her dressed state. There was an unnatural calm in her posture. “The threat is active, miss. We haven’t located the culprit who attacked you. It is not safe to leave the grounds alone.”
The mention of the man tightened her throat. She forced a scoff, a hint of Elena’s old fire. “So I’m to be locked in this compound forever? As far as he will know, I’m still inside. I won’t let anyone know that I am stepping out; you would be the only one who knows.”
He was silent for a long moment. The clock in the library ticked, a sound like a slowing heart. “My instructions are clear, I am to ensure you are kept safe,” he said finally.
If she ran, she’d be stopped. If she asked… Elena had to find a way to get there. She didn’t have much time, and she knew Presley wouldn’t let her leave. “Then accompany me,” she said, seizing the opening. Her voice softened, pleading. “You can drive me. Just… down near the docks. To the pier. I’ll get out to enjoy the breeze, you stay in the car with the engine running. Fifteen minutes. Then we come back. You’ve fulfilled your duty to keep me safe, and I get to feel like a human being again. Please.”
Presley’s gaze drifted past her, to the heavy front doors. A conflict played out in the tightening of his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes. She could see his mind working, trying to decide his next move. He looked back at her, at the determined set of her mouth, the green eyes bright with manufactured desperation.
“If I don’t go with you, you're just going to leave anyway…”
Elena didn’t answer, but she knew Presley already knew the answer.
“That is rather the problem, Miss Rossi,” Presley said, voice smooth but tightening at the edges. “You are not asking permission. You are informing me of intent.”
His gaze flicked to the door, then back to her.
“If I deny you, you proceed regardless. If I intervene, I escalate a situation I cannot justify without involving Mr. Thorn directly.”
A faint pause. Elena grew more tense.
“You have, quite neatly, removed the utility of refusal,” Presley said with an exhale. “So I will accompany you. The pier. Fifteen minutes. You do not leave my sight. And I trust you understand where the blame will fall when Mr. Thorn finds out.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, the relief genuine even if the reason was a lie.
“It’s a good thing I like you, Miss Rossi.” He pauses with a final thought.
He fetched a heavy key ring from his pocket and moved to the doors. “I will retrieve the car. Meet out front.”
She stood alone in the vast foyer, the backpack heavy with treason. Her right hand slid into her pocket, her fingers finding the cool metal of the lockpick case. Her thumb rubbed a smooth edge. Stage one: complete. She had her method to the dock. Now she needed to find a way to lose him.
The black sedan purred up the driveway, stopping before the stone steps. Presley got out, holding the rear passenger door open for her. A gentleman’s gesture. She slid in, placing the backpack on her lap. The interior smelled of lemon polish and leather. He closed her door with a soft thud, then took the driver’s seat.
They descended the winding drive in silence. The manor’s lights dwindled in the rearview mirror, swallowed by the night. Elena watched Presley’s profile. His hands were at ten and two on the wheel. His posture was rigid. He did not speak another word.
The city slid by her window, a smear of neon and shadow. Elena watched it without seeing, her eyes tracking the streetlights as they strobed across the dashboard, each one a pulse in the dead air between her and the man driving. Her fingers were ice where they gripped her knees. The revolver was a cold, hard planet against the small of her back, its presence both a discomfort and a condemnation.
Los Lona’s downtown glitz faded into districts of closed shops and barred windows. The transition was gradual, like sinking into colder water. The warm glow of restaurant patios gave way to the stark fluorescence of all-night laundromats, then to the darkness of auto-body shops with steel shutters rolled down for the night. Every turn Presley took felt deliberate, a path carved through the city’s underbelly.
She could feel his silence like a physical thing in the car. It wasn’t the comfortable quiet of the manor drives. This was charged, brittle. She wondered what script was running behind his eyes, what orders from Stern he was weighing against the raw terror she’d just shown him. The engine’s hum was the only sound, a low drone that vibrated up through the seats and into her bones.
“The Pier is just ahead,” he said, as the car slowed near a pull-off that offered a view of the city’s distant glitter.
“Actually,” Elena said, her voice steady. “Keep going. Take me to the south dock. The old pier warehouse.”
Presley’s foot eased off the accelerator. The car coasted. He did not look at her. “Miss Rossi. That was not our agreement.”
“I know. But that’s where I need to go. It’s… personal.”
“It is also the single most predictable location for an ambush after today’s shooting.” His voice was low, a controlled rumble. “I cannot allow it.”
Elena leaned forward, her face near the partition. “Presley, listen to me. Lisa is there. Stern has her. He’s going to kill her if I don’t bring him this backpack. He called me. He has her tied up; he drugged her with Eros. I have two hours. I have to go.”
The car came to a full stop on the deserted lane. Presley turned in his seat. In the dim dashboard light, his face was no longer showing stone, but anger. “You are just telling me now?”
“He said he’d hurt her if I told anyone. But I need your help. Not to come in. Just to get me there. Wait outside. If I’m not out in fifteen minutes… then you call Liam. But you have to let me try to get her out first. If he sees anyone else, he’ll kill her. You understand?”
Presley stared at her. The hesitation from the manor was back, but deeper, more profound. His eyes flicked to the backpack, then to her determined, terrified face. This hesitation didn't feel like it was about Liam’s rules. It was about him conflicting with his own orders. He was weighing her value as a pawn against the risk of deviating from his script.
“Please,” she whispered, pouring every ounce of raw, shattered fear into the word. “She’s my best friend.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He looked forward again, his hands tightening on the wheel. The silence stretched, broken only by the idle hum of the engine. Then, without a word, he put the car in drive and turned onto the road that led toward the industrial piers.
Elena sat back, her heart hammering against her ribs. She had played her card. Now she only hoped Presley was on her side and wouldn’t tell Liam.
The buildings grew more spaced out, the streetlights fewer. The salt-tang of the harbor seeped into the car, cutting through the recycled air. She saw the hulking skeletons of gantry cranes against the night sky, blacker shapes against the dark. The piers. Her throat tightened. Each block was a step closer, each empty warehouse lot a deeper breath held.
She didn’t look at Presley. She kept her face turned to the window, her reflection a ghost over the passing darkness. Her own eyes stared back, wide and green and frightened. The backpack sat like a lead weight on her lap, the dread of what the exchange could bring weighed in her mind. She counted her breaths, in and out, trying to steady the frantic animal rhythm of her heart. The mantra was gone. All that was left was the cold metal on her skin and the image of Lisa’s drugged, helpless face.
The black sedan slows to a stop beside a corroded chain-link fence, the engine's purr the only sound in the desolate yard of the south dock warehouse. Elena feels the press of the revolver against her back. She counts her weapons like a mantra: the gun, the lockpick case, the compact stun gun. She refuses to look at Presley as she pushes the door open.
The air is cold and smells of salt-rot and diesel. She slings the backpack over one shoulder and walks toward a side door hanging ajar on busted hinges. Her breathing is too loud in her ears.
She stopped just short of the doorway, her eyes scanning the cracked pavement. The backpack was a dead weight in her hand, slick with her own sweat.
She wouldn’t hand it over. Not immediately. Not unless she had Lisa safe first. She needed a place to stash it, something that would buy them seconds. Her gaze caught on a storm drain, its iron grate half-collapsed into the muck below. The smell of wet rot and decay rose from the black opening.
She knelt, the grit of the sidewalk biting into her knees. The metal was cold and slimy to the touch as she pried it back, the scrape loud in the empty street. She shoved the bag into the darkness, heard the soft thud as it hit the wet bottom. It was a gamble—a few seconds, maybe. Just enough time to grab Lisa and run before they could be used as leverage again.
Once the bag was stashed, she moved back towards the glow.
Darkness. The cavernous space is a maze of shipping containers, stacked like giant, rusted blocks. A faint, distant light bleeds from somewhere deep within. She moves, her sneakers silent on the concrete grit—the containers tower, creating narrow canyons that funnel her toward the glow. The only sounds are the drip of water and the low hum of a generator.
*****************************************
She rounds the last container—and the world narrows.
A single halogen lamp burns at the center, its light too bright, too sharp, carving everything into hard edges. Lisa sits bound to a metal chair within it, rope biting into her wrists and chest. Her head hangs—then jerks up at the intrusion. Her eyes are wide, unfocused, searching for something that won’t come. She can’t be still. Every few seconds, her body tenses, shifts, fights against itself.
Lisa is alive. But not okay.
“Ah,” a voice cuts in, smooth as silk dragged over glass. “Elena Rossi.”
Xander Stern steps into the edge of the light, as if he’s been waiting for his cue. Crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled, not a wrinkle out of place. He checks his watch with mild approval.
“Right on time. I do appreciate punctuality.”
Elena doesn’t answer that. Her attention flicks once more to Lisa, then locks onto him.
“I’m here. Let her go.”
Stern smiles—slow, amused. “Straight to business. No greeting? No negotiation warm-up?” He tilts his head, studying her like something under glass. “You actualy came alone. That’s either confidence… or desperation.”
“Where. Is. The. Laptop?” he adds, almost gently.
“Release her first.”
They move in unison—a single step from him, a rooted stillness from her.
Now he’s close. Too close. Close enough that the warehouse smell gives way to something sharper, expensive, deliberate. His presence presses, testing for weakness.
“And why,” he murmurs, “would I give up my leverage before I even see yours?”
Elena doesn’t step back. That’s the first win.
“Because without me, you don’t get what you want.” Her voice is steady, even if her pulse isn’t. “You let her go, I'll take you to it. Clean. Simple.”
Stern’s gaze flickers past her, briefly scanning the shadows behind. Expecting something. Finding nothing. A small crease forms between his brows.
Good.
Behind him, Lisa lets out a broken sound—half plea, half reflex. Stern glances back at her, almost absently, like checking on an object.
“She’s not in danger,” he says, turning back. “Just… experiencing clarity. Eros is remarkable, really. Strip away fear, inhibition—what’s left is truth.”
His eyes sharpen. “Now. The laptop.”
Elena lets a beat pass. Then another.
“No.”
The word lands harder than she expects.
Stern stills.
Not angry. Not yet. Interested.
Elena presses into it. “You don’t get both control and the prize. You choose.” A small tilt of her head toward Lisa. “You keep her, you lose the laptop. You let her go—you get me.”
That lands.
A flicker—quick, but real—cuts through Stern’s expression.
“You?” he repeats.
“You want Liam Thorn,” Elena says, and now she steps forward, closing the space he claimed. Taking some of it back. “You don’t get to him through her.” Another glance at Lisa. “She’s nothing to him.”
Her gaze locks with Stern’s. Unflinching.
“I’m worth something to him.”
Silence stretches.
Stern studies her differently now. Reassessing. Revaluing.
“A more interesting offer,” he admits softly.
He reaches out, almost lazily, brushing his fingers along Lisa’s jaw. She flinches—then goes still, caught between reactions she can’t control.
Elena’s stomach tightens—but she doesn’t move.
“Convince me,” Stern says, stepping in again, voice lowering as he leans near her ear. “Give me something real. Something he’d never want me to have.”
The words slip in like a knife.
Elena’s mind fractures into options—secrets, vulnerabilities, fault lines. Each one heavier than the last. Each one a betrayal she can feel in her bones.
She opens her mouth—
—and hesitates.
Stern feels it.
Of course he does.
His smile sharpens. “There it is,” he whispers. “The line you won’t cross.”
Before she can recover—
Movement.
Two men stepped from the shadows she hadn’t cleared. One presses cold steel to her temple. The other blocks her retreat without a word.
The balance snaps.
Stern steps back, reclaiming the space between them as if it were always his.
“And here I was,” he sighs lightly, “letting you think this was a negotiation.”
His gaze drifts between her and Lisa, slow, measuring.
“Why would I trade,” he continues, almost bored now, “when I can simply take?”
He smiles again—warmer this time. Crueler.
“Two assets. One room. And all the time in the world.”