Monday night
My shoes scrape against loose gravel, heart pounding against my ribs as I fight the adrenaline coursing through me. I round the corner of the half-built retaining wall where I watched Ben fall—and stop cold. He’s not there.
I didn’t shoot to kill him. I know that. Iknowwhere I aimed. But still—he should be here. Panic pricks at the edges of my thoughts.
There’s a mess of rigid foam insulation sheets leaning at an awkward angle—cracked and dented. It takes me a second to register the streak of blood trailing across them. My stomach knots.
I search the open floor slab, heart hammering harder now. My eyes dart across the exposed concrete and jagged debris. Nothing. No sign of him.
Just—blood.
A faint trail of it, smeared across the cement. Not enough to say fatal. But enough to make my skin crawl.I know where I aimed...
“Ben?” My voice catches. Breaks.
No answer—just the lonely thwapping of a torn tarp flapping in the wind.
I back up a step, nearly tripping over a snapped rebar.This isn’t how it ends. It can’t be.
I blink hard, willing my vision to sharpen through the haze of dust and fear. Nothing moves. No groan, no cough, no smart-aleck quip rising from the shadows to tell me I’m overreacting.
Only that blood.
A softdingcuts through the silence. I freeze. Anotherding. It’s faint but distinct—the sound of a notification. An alert. From a cell phone?
Or laptop.
I follow the sound, heart in my throat, creeping past a low partition wall partially framed with exposed beams and bent conduit. The jagged outline of scaffolding looms overhead as I walk deeper into the site, like I’m walking into the belly of the beast.
I keep going until I see it. The laptop. Perched on a stack of paint buckets. It’s open, the screen lit, and... My eyes scan the area around it. Unattended? Where’s Ramirez?
Anotherdingdraws me to it. The auction window is open and showing a live feed of bids still rolling in. A timer is ticking down as numbers continue to climb. Bank account strings. Transaction IDs. Countries I can’t even pronounce.
The auction is still happening. I glance around, half expecting Ramirez to jump out from behind a support column, gun drawn. Nothing. If he ran, why didn’t he take this with him? I think about the empty spot where Ben’s body should’ve been. Did something happen?
It gives me hope that Ben’s alive—wounded—but maybe he’s subdued Ramirez somewhere, which means it’s my job to stop the auction.
But how?
I begin jabbing at keys. Try to close windows. Hit the escape button several times, harder with each hit. Nothing works. It’s encrypted, locked tight behind layers of code. What if I smash it? Would that stop it? I don’t know but I have to try.
I look around and spot a broken brick a few feet away. I run to it, but before my fingers can latch onto the rough edge, I hear it.
A scuffling noise.
I freeze.
Then his voice slithers out from the shadows behind me—low, quiet, and ice-cold. “You should’ve stayed the assistant. You’re better at coffee than betrayal.”
I turn slowly. Ramirez steps out of the shadows, gun in hand. Dust streaks his jacket, his expression unbothered, like he’s walking into a meeting and not pointing a gun at my head.
“I’d love to get you a latte laced with arsenic,” I say, meeting his gaze. “Or do you prefer antifreeze?”
His lips twitch, a flicker of amusement as he starts to circle me—slow, deliberate, like a vulture with a Rolex. “You really don’t know what you’ve walked into, do you?”
“I know enough to suggest adding ‘violent narcissist’ to your dating profile.”
Is it wise to joke with a guy with a God complex who’s holding a gun? Probably not. But until I find a way out of this, I use what I’ve got—sarcasm and nerve. Unfortunately, neither is bulletproof.
