The fall lasted forever and no time at all. Alyssa's stomach lurched as gravity claimed them, wind and rain turning the world into a howling nightmare of vertigo and terror.
Below, the maintenance platform rushed up to meet them a strip of metal barely six feet wide, slick with rain and forty-six floors above certain death.
Dominic hit first, his shoulder slamming into the platform's safety rail with a sickening crack. The impact spun him sideways, and for one heart-stopping moment, Alyssa thought he was going over the edge. Then his hand shot out, fingers wrapping around the metal grating with desperate strength.
She landed hard beside him, her knees buckling as the platform shuddered under their combined impact. The whole structure groaned ominously, swaying in the wind like a ship in a storm.
"Move!" she gasped, hauling Dominic to his feet. Above them, muzzle flashes lit up the shattered window of his penthouse. Nikolai's men were already repositioning, and in seconds they'd have a clear shot down at the platform.
"Can't " Dominic's face was white with pain, his left arm hanging useless at his side. "Shoulder's dislocated."
"Then we improvise." Alyssa grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked, hard. The joint popped back into place with an audible snap, and Dominic bit back a scream.
"Jesus Christ, warn me next time!"
"There won't be a next time if we don't move." She was already scanning their options. The maintenance platform extended around the building's corner, but it was exposed, offering no cover from the shooters above.
Fifty feet away, she could see an access hatch probably leading to an internal maintenance shaft.
Bullets sparked off the metal beside her head.
"Run," she said.
They sprinted along the narrow platform, rain making every step treacherous. The building's facade flashed past in a blur of glass and steel, punctuated by the constant crack of gunfire from above. A round shattered a window inches from Dominic's head, showering them with glass.
"They're following us," he panted. "Internal stairs they'll be at ground level in minutes."
"Then we don't go to ground level." Alyssa reached the access hatch and yanked it open. Beyond was a shaft barely wide enough for one person, with maintenance ladders disappearing into darkness above and below. "Up or down?"
"Up. Roof access. I have an emergency helicopter "
"They'll have disabled it by now." She swung into the shaft, testing the ladder's strength. It held. "Down it is. How many floors to the parking garage?"
"Five." Dominic followed her into the shaft, moving awkwardly with his injured shoulder. "But Alyssa, if they're monitoring the building "
"They are. Which is why we're not taking a car." She began descending, moving fast but careful not to outpace him. "Tell me about building security. Cameras, motion sensors, anything that might help or hinder us."
"Full digital surveillance on every floor. Motion detectors in the stairwells. Biometric locks on restricted areas." His voice echoed strangely in the confined space. "But the maintenance areas are on a separate system. Less sophisticated."
"Good. What about "
The ladder rung under her hand exploded into sparks. Above them, the access hatch filled with the barrel of an assault rifle.
"They found us," Dominic said unnecessarily.
Alyssa didn't waste time responding. She let go of the ladder and dropped, free-falling through the shaft as gunfire erupted above. The walls flashed past in a dark blur ..... ten feet, twenty, thirty before she grabbed another rung, her shoulders screaming from the sudden stop.
Dominic landed beside her a second later, his face grim. "That was insane."
"Insane works." She kicked open the nearest access panel, revealing a narrow corridor lined with pipes and electrical conduits. "Service tunnels. They'll connect to the parking garage."
They crawled through the maze of building infrastructure, following signs and emergency lighting toward the garage levels. The space was cramped, forcing them to move single-file through sections barely wide enough for their shoulders. Behind them, she could hear voices echoing through the shaft Nikolai's men, following their trail.
"There," Dominic said, pointing to a ventilation grate twenty feet ahead. Beyond it, she could see the concrete walls of the parking garage. "But we'll be completely exposed once we go through. If they have men positioned "
"They do." Alyssa had already spotted the tactical team moving through the garage, checking behind cars with military precision. "Four hostiles, maybe five. Professional spacing, good communication discipline."
"So what's the plan?"
She studied the garage layout through the grate. Most of the cars were expensive luxury vehicles. Dominic's building catered to the wealthy. But in the far corner, she spotted something more promising: a black SUV with tinted windows and reinforced panels. Either a paranoid billionaire's ride or...
"Security vehicle," she murmured. "Probably armored. Definitely armed." She turned to Dominic. "I need a distraction. Something loud and obvious that will draw them away from that corner."
"The building's fire suppression system." His eyes lit up with understanding. "I can trigger it remotely, flood the entire garage with foam and strobes. But it'll only last a few minutes before they override it."
"A few minutes is all I need." She was already working at the grate's fastenings. "Wait for my signal, then light it up."
"What signal?"
Alyssa kicked the grate out and dropped into the garage before he could stop her.
She landed in a crouch behind a silver Mercedes, immediately rolling sideways as automatic fire chewed up the concrete where she'd been. The tactical team converged on her position with practiced efficiency, but they were thinking like soldiers corners and cover, fields of fire and kill zones.
Alyssa thought like a spy.
She rolled under the Mercedes, using its bulk as cover while she low-crawled toward the center of the garage. Above her, boots pounded past as the hostiles repositioned. One of them was shouting coordinates in Russian they had radios, which meant they were coordinating with the team upstairs.
Perfect.
She pulled the pin on the flashbang grenade she'd lifted from Nikolai's men during the penthouse fight. Three seconds. She rolled it across the garage floor toward the largest cluster of vehicles, then pressed herself flat against the concrete.
The explosion was deafening in the enclosed space, followed immediately by the shriek of car alarms and the distinctive whoop-whoop of the building's emergency systems coming online.
Foam erupted from ceiling nozzles like white waterfalls, and strobe lights turned the garage into a disorienting nightmare of light and shadow. The tactical team's night vision was useless, their radio chatter dissolving into confused shouts.
Alyssa moved through the chaos like a ghost, using the foam and flashing lights as cover. The armored SUV was thirty feet away, its driver's door tantalizingly close. But between her and it stood the last hostile a mountain of a man with a scarred face and dead eyes.
He saw her coming and raised his weapon, but Alyssa was already inside his reach. She grabbed the rifle barrel, using his own momentum to spin him around, then drove her knee into his kidney. He grunted and tried to headbutt her, but she ducked under the blow and swept his legs.
He went down hard, skull cracking against concrete.
"Keys!" she shouted up at the ventilation grate where Dominic was still hidden.
"Already in it!" he called back. "Remote start!"
The SUV's engine roared to life as Dominic dropped from the grate, landing awkwardly but staying upright. They reached the vehicle together, diving into the front seats as the remaining hostiles emerged from the foam-covered chaos.
"Drive!" Dominic yelled, but Alyssa was already moving.
She slammed the SUV into reverse, tires screaming as they shot backward through the garage. A hostile appeared in front of them, rifle raised, and she spun the wheel hard left.
The vehicle's armored flank caught him center mass, sending him flying into a concrete pillar.
"Exit!" Dominic pointed toward the garage ramp. "But they'll have people "
The windshield starred as sniper fire erupted from the street level. Alyssa kept the accelerator floored, the SUV's engine howling as they rocketed up the ramp toward daylight. More shots hammered into the vehicle's armored flanks, but the glass held.
They burst onto the street in a shower of sparks and shattered concrete, the SUV's suspension bottoming out as they hit the pavement. Around them, the city at night was a blur of neon and rain, normal people living normal lives, unaware that a war was being fought in their midst.
"Where to?" Alyssa asked, weaving through traffic as police sirens began to wail in the distance.
"Geneva," Dominic said grimly. "We need to find Isabella before they "
His phone buzzed. Another text from the unknown number; 'The girl is safe. For now. You have 18 hours to deliver Alyssa Carter to the following coordinates, or she dies. Come alone.'
Below the message was an address in Geneva, and a photo that made Dominic's blood run cold.
Isabella, bound to a chair in what looked like an abandoned warehouse, very much alive but clearly terrified. And standing behind her, just visible in the shadows, was Viktor Volkov himself.
"They have her," he said quietly.
Alyssa glanced at the phone, her jaw tightening. "Then we get her back."
"It's a trap. They want you, not her. Isabella's just bait."
"I know." She took a hard right, tires squealing as they merged onto the highway toward the airport. "But here's the thing about traps they only work if the prey doesn't know they're walking into one."
"And if we do know?"
Her smile was sharp as a blade. "Then we spring a trap of our own."