Chapter 29 · The Betrayal Price

"Put the knife down, Soran." Vala kept her weapon aimed at his chest, but the blade at my throat belonged to the man standing behind me.

The edge pressed just hard enough to sting. One wrong twitch and I would be bleeding across the executive suite floor.

Soran smiled at Vala through the glass wall behind his desk. Below us, Aurora City burned in strips of neon and traffic lights. Above us, the tower’s security grid blinked red.

"You’re still giving orders?" Soran asked. "That’s cute."

"I said put it down."

"And I heard you." His gaze slid to me. "But Kai is still breathing. So clearly, none of us are listening very well tonight."

The man behind me shifted. I caught the scrape of his boot against the floor and felt the knife move with him.

Vala’s jaw tightened. "Release him."

"You want him released?" Soran leaned back in his chair. "After he cracked the Crown Vault? After he put a foreign intelligence inside his own nervous system? After he turned half my tower against me?"

"You hired me to erase him," Vala said. "Not carve him open in front of an audience.