The doctor bared his teeth to spit a curse, but I caught his hand and slammed it onto the fingerprint scanner beside the door.
The lights blinked green… then Ashur pried his eyelids open for the retinal scan. When it finished, I held the white keycard to the reader, and the lock clicked.
The doctor glared at me, panting, eyes full of hate.
I smirked.
"Didn't think I'd make it to your room, did you?"
All three of us stepped inside.
The smart lights blinked on; the blinds slid aside, and only then did I realize it was day.
Sunlight spilled across the white floor, a warm sheet on my frozen skin for the briefest second.
I hadn't seen—hadn't felt—the sun in a long time. Its flawless light. Its soft heat.
I swallowed the lump in my throat with something like hate. The sun and I both knew exactly who kept us apart.
Ignoring the pain sawing through my leg and side, I grabbed the doctor by the collar and hurled him down beside his desk.
Through clenched teeth, I growled, "We have unfinished business."
I pressed my gun to his bleeding temple and jerked my chin at the laptop on the desk.
"Open it."
Ashur, cool as winter, lifted the doctor's glass from the white desk, took a swig, then snagged the laptop as well—never once letting his aim waver from the doctor's head.
The doctor locked his bloodshot eyes on mine and smiled, flashing a row of red-smeared teeth. "It's just a regular laptop…"
Ashur dropped it onto the man's knees, planted the sole of his boot on the doctor's shoulder, and drank again, lazy as if on break. Humiliation as a posture. Rage sparked in the doctor's hateful eyes.
I gave him a matching, toothy smile and pressed the muzzle harder into his temple; his face tightened with pain. "If that's a regular laptop, then you're probably a virgin."
Still seething—grinding his teeth against the pain in his arm—he typed in the password.
I leaned in, frowning, lifted the laptop off him, and set it on the desk beside me. Keeping the gun to his head, I typed one-handed.
A few minutes were enough to find the encrypted, hidden folders.
My gaze snagged on the sheer number of files—when Ashur's low voice rolled through the quiet:
"What are you going to do?"
I drew a breath and finally understood why it hurt—something inside was cracked. My voice came thin, a little shaky. "Send their classified data to the Tailor."
I moved fast, funneling every restricted file to the only address that could save us. Final phase of the mission. They'd have to come for us now.
"We don't have t—time!" Ashur snapped.
The doctor braced his back against the desk's legs and sneered. "Those are client records… useless to you. And… I honestly thought you were smarter than this."
He lifted his gaze slowly to mine and, in a soft, drawn-out tone, said, "Viona… No matter how far you run… I'll find you. The way you fell into my hands once, you'll fall again. You'll be my doll."
One eyebrow arched. Molten metal rushed my veins. My heart went black with hate; poison flooded everything.
A poor girl's face flashed in my mind. This man had ruined so many lives—murdered innocent girls and doomed others to a fate worse than death.
I leaned closer, breath to breath, the muzzle digging into his temple. "What made you think you had me?"
His baffled look tasted sweet. I smiled—unhinged and vicious—as the memory unspooled, crisp as film on a screen.
"As the memory resurfaced, I realized the fool of a doctor had no idea he'd been played."