Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Cal is dead.
I know.
Nate killed him.
I know.
And you’re next if you don’t keep moving.
I hail a cab.
The driver is an older guy with a Mets cap and a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Where to?” he asks tiredly.
“To 48th and 10th. Fast as you can, please.”
He pulls into traffic. The wipers beat a steady rhythm against the windshield, smearing the city lights into watercolor streaks. I twist in my seat to check the rear window.
Black SUV. Three cars back.
It could be nothing. Could be coincidence. New York is full of black SUVs and not all of them are hunting me.
But as I keep watching, it’s not changing lanes. Not passing. Just following behind us, block after block, still three cars back.
“Shit.”
The driver glances at me in the mirror. “You okay back there?”
“Fine. Just—can you speed up?”
“Lady, I get that you’re from England, or something, but this is Midtown. Nobody speeds up in Midtown.”
He’s right. The traffic has thickened into something approaching gridlock, brake lights stretching ahead like a river of red, and we’re barely crawling. I check the mirror again. The SUV is closer now. Two cars back.
“Pull over.”
“What? We’re not even—”
I tap my mobile against the screen behind his seat to pay and wrench open the door before he’s fully stopped, stumbling out into the rain, into the honking chaos of stalled traffic, my shins brushing against a car’s bumper. Horns blare. Someone shouts. I don’t look back, just run.
The sidewalk is packed but I shoulder through, using elbows when I have to, not caring anymore about attracting attention because they already know where I am, they’re already coming, and the only thing that matters now is putting distance between me and that SUV.
I cut down a side street. Then an alley. The rain is relentless, streaming down my face, plastering my hair to my skull, and every breath burns in my lungs but I keep going, keep pushing, because stopping means I would have to fight and I’m not sure what the people working for Global Dynamix have up their sleeve, but it’s going to be bad. It would be a fight I can’t win and I’m not ready to die. Not tonight. Not like this.
Hell’s Kitchen opens up around me, narrow streets, walk-up apartments, fire escapes zigzagging down brick facades. Thanks to my mapping and old habits, I know this neighborhood well by now. I know which alleys connect, which doors are usually unlocked, which rooftops you can access…if you’re desperate enough.
I’m desperate enough.
“Bayo,” I gasp into the comms. “I’m close. Two blocks out. Where are you?”
“Almost there. One minute.”
One minute. I can survive one minute.
I round a corner and see it—the parking garage, the alley behind it, the extraction point. Sixty feet away. Fifty. Forty.
A van screeches around the corner ahead of me.
It blocks the alley entrance, headlights cutting through the rain, and before I can reverse course there are footsteps behind me, heavy and fast, and I spin to find three men closing in from the way I came.
Trapped.
The van doors slam open. More men pour out. Four, five, six of them, all in tactical black, all moving with the synchronized efficiency of a unit that’s done this before.
I pull my knife.
It’s a stupid move. A knife against six trained operatives is a joke, a gesture, a way of saying I’m going to make this hurt even if I can’t win. But I’m not going down without a fight. That’s not who I am. That’s not what Cal helped train me to be.
The first one reaches me and I slash low, catching him across the thigh. He stumbles with a grunt and I’m already moving, driving my elbow into the second one’s throat, feeling cartilage crunch under the impact. He goes down choking and I spin, blade up, ready for the third—
Something slams into my back.
I hit the wet pavement hard, the knife skittering out of my grip, and then there are hands everywhere—grabbing my arms, my legs, pinning me down while I thrash and kick and scream into the rain.
“Get off me! Get the fuck—Help!”
A bag comes down over my head. The world goes dark. I can’t see, can barely breathe through the heavy fabric, and they’re hauling me up now, dragging me toward the van while I fight with everything I have left, kicking everywhere I can, relishing every point of contact, every groan I draw out.
But it’s not enough.
They throw me inside and the floor is cold metal against my bare skin. I hear the doors slam. Feel the engine rumble to life. Smell exhaust and leather and something chemical, like cleaning solution.
“Bayo,” I try to say, but the word comes out muffled, useless. “Bayo, I’ve been lifted…Bayo? They have me.”
Nothing.
There is no response.
My heart goes cold.
The van starts moving.
And then I hear it—a voice cutting through the chaos, calm and cold and terrifyingly familiar. Not from the comms but from inside the van.