Emily's POV
The man with the binoculars didn't lower them for a full minute. Emily stood frozen at the security panel, her reflection a pale ghost superimposed over the grainy black-and-white feed. He was so far away, just a blurry shape, but the intent was as clear as if he were in the room with her. I see you. I'm still here.
Then, the window rolled up. The SUV's lights flashed once, and it pulled away, melting into the evening traffic.
The encounter left her nerves scraped raw. The penthouse, which had felt like a sterile museum, now felt like a glass box under a microscope. Every shadow in the vast space seemed like it could hold a threat. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was the quiet before a storm.
She didn't sleep again. She dragged a blanket and pillow into the walk-in closet—the only room without any external walls or windows—and curled up on the floor between racks of unfamiliar clothes. It was childish, but the small, enclosed space felt safer.
A sharp, electronic buzz jerked her from a fitful doze. It wasn't an alarm. It was the intercom by the front door.
Her heart leapt into her throat. Marco had said no one came to this floor. Was it him? Alexander?
She crept out of the closet and to the door. There was no peephole. Only a small video screen next to the intercom. She pressed the button.
The screen flickered to life, showing the empty hallway outside. No one was there.
"Hello?" her voice cracked over the intercom.
No answer.
Then, from the speaker, a low, distorted chuckle. Mechanically altered, as a voice run through a cheap synthesizer.
"Little bird in a gilded cage…" the voice hissed, full of static. "Does the big cat think he can keep you safe?"
Emily stumbled back from the door, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream.
"Walls can be climbed…" the voice whispered. "Locks can be picked… Sleep tight, little bird."
The intercom went dead with a final click.
Terror, pure and liquid, poured through her veins. They were in the building. They'd accessed the private penthouse floor intercom. How? Marco's team was supposed to be monitoring everything!
Her eyes shot to the security panel. The hallway feed showed… nothing. Empty, silent hallway. But someone had just been at her door.
The panic button. The little red button Marco had shown her. Active, immediate threat inside this apartment. This wasn't inside. But it was at her door. Was that enough?
Before she could decide, the main bank of screens flickered.
One by one, starting with the lobby feed, they dissolved into cascading digital snow. A sharp, whining screech emitted from the panel's speaker.
ZZZZZT POP ZZZZT
Then, blackness.
Every screen went dark.
The security system was down.
The only light now was the ambient glow of the city through the wall of glass. The penthouse was plunged into a deep, vulnerable silence.
This was it. This was the "immediate threat."
She lunged for the panic button, her finger stabbing at the small, red circle.
Nothing happened.
No light. No confirmation beep. No sound at all.
It was dead, too.
They hadn't just hacked the intercom. They had taken down the entire system. She was blind, deaf, and cut off.
Think, Emily, THINK! Marco was right outside the main door to the penthouse foyer. But if they'd taken down the system, had they gotten to him first? Was he lying in the hallway right now?
The elevator chime rang out, bright and cheerful in the deadly quiet.
Ding.
Her blood turned to ice.
The elevator was coming up.
She looked around wildly for a weapon. The kitchen! She ran, her socks slipping on the polished concrete. She yanked open a drawer, grabbing the largest, heaviest knife she could find. It was a chef's knife, the blade gleaming wickedly in the city light.
She pressed her back against the cool stainless steel of the refrigerator, holding the knife in front of her with both hands, the way she'd seen in movies. Her arms shook violently.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft whoosh.
No footsteps.
Silence.
Then, a low groan. The sound of something heavy being dragged.
A shadow fell across the open elevator doorway, stretching long and distorted into the penthouse.
Emily held her breath, her knuckles white on the knife handle.
The shadow moved. A figure appeared in the doorway, backlit by the elevator light.
It was Marco.
He was stumbling, one hand clutching his side. A dark, wet stain spread across his light-colored sweater. His face was pale, slick with sweat.
"Emily…" he gasped, taking a staggering step forward. "Run… they're in the… stairs…"
He collapsed to his knees, then pitched forward onto his face, lying still just inside the threshold.
"MARCO!" Emily screamed, starting forward.
But she stopped dead after two steps.
Something was wrong.
Marco's gun was still in its holster at his side. If he'd been ambushed, wouldn't he have drawn it? And the way he fell… it was too dramatic, like an actor in a play.
Her eyes darted from his motionless form to the dark, open elevator behind him. The cab was empty.
It was a trap.
They'd hurt Marco or make it look like they'd hurt him to lure her out. To get her to step into that hallway, toward the elevator, toward the stairwell where they were waiting.
She stood frozen, torn between the urge to help the man who had protected her and the screaming voice in her head that said STAY PUT.
Marco didn't move. The pool of dark liquid around him slowly widened on the pale floor.
It's not real. It can't be real. They're using him as bait.
But what if it was real? What if he was really hurt, bleeding out because of her?
A new sound reached her ears. Faint. Metallic. A subtle scritch-scratch coming from the direction of the private internal staircase, the one Alexander had said was for emergency use only, sealed from the inside.
They weren't just at the elevator. They were picking the lock on the stairwell door, too. They were coming from all sides.
She was surrounded.
The knife felt useless in her hands. She was a waitress with a kitchen knife against professionals.
Her eyes landed on the dead security panel. And then on the tablet Marco had given her, lying on the coffee table. The one with the three authorized faces.
It had a camera.
It might have a connection.
She dove for the tablet, snatching it up. Her fingers fumbled, unlocking it. She opened the camera app and switched it to video mode. She hit record.
"If anyone finds this," she whispered, her voice shaking but clear, pointing the camera at the door where the scratching was getting louder. "My name is Emily Grant. I'm being attacked in Alexander Rossi's penthouse. The security is down. Marco is down at the elevator. They're at the stairwell door. They work for Silas. Tell my mother I."
A deafening BANG echoed through the penthouse.
Not from the stairwell door.
From the wall of glass.
Emily spun, the tablet camera catching the view.
A dark shape was suspended outside the three-inch ballistic window. A man in all-black harnessed to a rappelling line, dangling forty stories above the city. In his hands was a strange, football-sized device with a suction cup. He pressed it against the glass.
The device hummed, a high-pitched whine that vibrated through the floor.
The glass, directly where the device was attached, began to crack.
A spiderweb of fissures radiated out from the suction cup, spreading with horrifying speed across the vast pane.
The whining grew to a scream. The cracks multiplied.
The man outside the window looked right at her through the fracturing glass, his eyes cold and businesslike. He gave her a small, mocking salute.
The entire wall of glass was now a mosaic of fractures, held together by some miracle of engineering, but groaning under immense pressure.
They weren't picking locks.
They were coming straight through the wall.