Chapter 35 · Cold Steel and Deadbolt Leverage

Thick gray smoke poured under the door, crawling across the slate like grease looking for a drain.

Then came the beeping.

"Down," Owen barked.

Not *get behind me*. Not *stay back*. Just *down*—the exact voice he used on his dock crew right before a crane cable snapped.

I dropped. My flank tore, a white-hot wire yanking viciously against the surgical tape, and I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper so he wouldn’t hear me whimper.

The satchel sat at the bottom of the landing where the point man dropped it. Cheap canvas. A kitchen timer taped to something that smelled like struck sulfur and battery acid.

Owen didn’t waste a breath. He rammed the shotgun barrel through the strap, hauled it over the banister, and dumped it.

It turned twice in midair. Hit the marble foyer.

The blast ripped the oxygen straight out of the stairwell.

The shockwave blew the smoke flat, and for one split second, the whole second-floor landing was bare—