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I follow, but another round comes through the office wall and catches Murphy in the side.

He stumbles, and Cal drops.

“Run, Sera…” Murphy hisses. “Leave us. Get back to Saint.”

My hand locks around the railing. Cal’s down, there’s blood pumping through Murphy’s fingers, and the open staircase gives me no way to defend either of them. Stalling won’t save them. It will only give those men another body.

I hate how clean the calculation is.

“Hold the stairs,” I order. “I’ll find Saint.”

Murphy nods once. “Go.”

Above us, someone fires through the railing and the round tears into Murphy’s back.

Cold prickles sweep across my scalp as he pitches forward beside Cal. Eamon is dead behind the office door, Cal hasn’t moved, and now Murphy is bleeding out at my feet. Three men have fallen in less than a minute.

This isn’t an attack. Someone is wiping us out.

I fire up through the metal steps, aiming at legs and movement. One man screams and falls sideways against the rail, but another replaces him before the first has stopped moving.

I turn and take the stairs two at a time, finally reaching the ground-floor door that slams behind me as bullets hit the wall where my head had been.

Computers glow on abandoned desks. Chairs sit pushed back from tables. A phone rings somewhere and keeps ringing.

I check the magazine.

Fuck, I’ve only two bullets left.

My pulse slams in my throat as I overturn a chair behind me, shove a cabinet across the doorway, and take cover behind the reception counter.

Men enter from both sides.

The first fires over the cabinet. I aim, shoot, and when he drops, I know I’ve got one bullet left.

Another man charges at me instead of firing. I take a steadying breath, waiting until he’s close, then pull the trigger.

The second it fires, he dips out of its reach, and my last bullet disappears.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I throw the gun at his face and duck as a rifle butt swings toward my head. When it wallops the counter, I grab the wheeled chair beside me and ram it into his legs.

Despite putting up a fight, strong arms circle my waist from the side, and a man wrestles me to the ground.

I slam my forehead into his nose, twist free, and snatch the fallen stapler from the floor, bringing it down against his temple.

He swears and grabs my hair at the scalp, yanking my head down before he drives his forearm across my throat and pins me against the wall.

The other looms over us with his gun pointed at my face.

I claw at the arm crushing my windpipe, but the pressure keeps building until my lungs cramp and my vision starts to blur.

Three shots crack on my next tattered breath.

The man ready to kill me jerks before dropping. The one pinning me to the floor follows half a heartbeat later, his weight collapsing against me until I shove him aside and drag air into my lungs.

A figure advances through the smoke wearing a balaclava, a fitted black shirt open at the collar, and tailored trousers streaked with ash and blood.