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"Get in the back." Mara yanked the wheel hard left, throwing us into a side alley. "Now."
"What?"
"Back seat. Move."
I twisted around, saw the headlights closing behind us. Two cars. Maybe three. The ledger flared hot against my ribs, lines of text scrolling too fast to read.
"They're not following," I said. "They're herding."
"I know." She didn't look at me. "That's why you're getting in the back."
"What are you—"
"Just do it."
I climbed over the center console, squeezed into the back. The moment I dropped into the seat, Mara slammed the brakes. The car behind us swerved, clipped a dumpster, kept coming.
"Hold on," she said, and reversed straight into them.
Metal screamed. The impact threw me forward, then back. Mara was already moving again, shifting into drive, gunning it. We shot out of the alley onto a wider street. Empty. Too empty.
"They knew we'd run," I said.
"Yeah."
"They knew where."
"Yeah."
"So where the hell are we going?"
She didn't answer. Just took another hard right, then a left, weaving through streets I didn't recognize. The headlights stayed with us. Closer now.
"Mara."
"Shut up. I'm thinking."
"Think faster."
She shot me a look in the rearview. "You want to drive?"
"I want to not die."
"Then let me work."
The ledger pulsed again. I pulled it out, flipped it open. New entries, scrolling up from the bottom of the page.
DEBT ACTIVE: M. Quinn → J. Vale. STATUS: UNPAID. INTEREST ACCRUING.
DEBT ACTIVE: J. Vale → M. Quinn. STATUS: UNPAID. INTEREST ACCRUING.
"What the hell," I muttered.
"What?"
"It says we owe each other."
"What does?"
"The book. You owe me. I owe you. It's—" I stopped. The text kept scrolling. New names. New numbers. All of them connected to Mara's office, her accounts, her access codes.
"It's what?"
"It's eating your whole damn system."
She didn't respond. Just accelerated, hard enough that I had to grab the seat to stay upright. We hit another turn, tires shrieking, and I saw where we were headed.
The audit building. Thirty stories of glass and steel, lit up like a Christmas tree in the middle of the financial district.
"You're not serious," I said.
"Dead serious."
"They'll be waiting."
"I know."
"So why—"
"Because if they've got my system, I need to see it. I need to know how deep it goes."
"And if it's a trap?"
"Then we're already caught." She pulled into the underground garage, killed the lights. "So shut up and help me figure out who's holding the net."
We parked in a corner spot, far from the elevators. Mara got out first, drew her gun, scanned the rows of cars. I followed, keeping low.
"How many ways in?" I asked.
"Three. Garage elevator, main lobby, service entrance on the east side."
"Which one's compromised?"
"All of them, probably." She moved toward the elevator, then stopped. "Wait."
"What?"
"Look."
I followed her gaze. A black sedan, parked two rows over. Engine still ticking. Someone had been here recently. Maybe still was.
"Back door," I said.
"Yeah."
We circled around, came at the service entrance from the side. Mara swiped her card. The lock clicked. We slipped inside, into a narrow hallway that smelled like bleach and old coffee.
"Your office," I said. "What floor?"
"Twelve."
"Stairs or elevator?"
"Stairs. Elevator logs everything."
We took the stairs two at a time, moving fast and quiet. At the eighth floor landing, Mara stopped, held up a hand.
"What?" I whispered.
"Someone's up there."
"How do you—"
"I can hear them."
I listened. Nothing. Then, faint and far above, the scrape of a boot on concrete.
"They're coming down," she said.
"How many?"
"Can't tell."
"Guess."
"Two. Maybe three."
I checked the ledger. It was burning now, hot enough to hurt through my jacket. I flipped it open. The page had changed. New text, bright red, written in a hand I didn't recognize.
COLLECTION AUTHORIZED: E. SLATE.
TARGET: J. VALE.
METHOD: TERMINAL.
"Slate," I said.
"What about him?"
"He's authorized the hit."
Mara swore, low and vicious. "How do you know?"
"It's in the book. Says collection authorized, method terminal. That means—"
"I know what it means." She checked her clip, chambered a round. "How far up?"
"Can't tell. But they're close."
"Then we go through them."
"Are you—"
"You got a better idea?"
I didn't. We kept climbing. At the eleventh floor, the footsteps stopped. Then a door opened above us, and someone started down fast.
Mara moved first. She hit the landing, swung around the corner, fired twice. I heard a grunt, a body hitting the wall. Then another door opened, and someone was shooting back.
I flattened against the wall, pulled the gun Torres had been carrying. I'd taken it off him in the alley, hadn't mentioned it to Mara. Seemed like a good time to use it now.
I leaned out, fired blind. The shooter ducked back, and Mara was already moving, closing the distance. She grabbed him by the collar, slammed him into the railing, put the gun under his chin.
"Who sent you?"
He didn't answer. Just smiled, blood on his teeth.
"Wrong answer," Mara said, and pulled the trigger.
The sound echoed down the stairwell, ringing in my ears. She let him drop, kept moving. I followed, stepping over the body.
"There's more," I said.
"I know."
"How many?"
"Doesn't matter."
We hit the twelfth floor. The door was already open. Mara went through fast, gun up, and I was right behind her. The hallway was empty. Lights flickering. At the end, her office door stood half-open, light spilling out.
"Stay close," she said.
"Not planning to wander."
We moved down the hall, backs to the wall. At the door, Mara paused, listened. Then she kicked it open and went in.
Her office was trashed. Desk overturned, files scattered, monitors smashed. And standing in the middle of it all, gun leveled at us, was a woman I'd never seen before.
"Quinn," the woman said. "You're late."
"Who are you?"
"Cleanup." She gestured with the gun. "Drop yours."
Mara didn't move. "You work for Slate."
"I work for the house. Slate's just a name on the board."
"What do you want?"
"The book. And the fixer who's carrying it."
"Not happening," I said.
The woman smiled. "Wasn't asking you."
She shifted the gun toward Mara. "You can walk out of here, Quinn. Leave him, take the stairs, forget this whole thing. We'll clean it up. You'll get a transfer, a raise, maybe even a commendation."
"Or?"
"Or you die with him."
Mara looked at me. Just for a second. Long enough for me to see the calculation in her eyes. The way she was weighing it. Her life against mine. Her career against whatever the hell this ledger was pulling us into.
Then she fired.
The cleanup woman went down hard, clutching her shoulder. Mara crossed the room, kicked the gun away, stood over her.
"Wrong answer," Mara said.
I moved to the desk, started digging through the wreckage. The ledger was hot now, almost too hot to hold. I pulled it out, flipped to the back page.
New text. Bright red. Still writing itself.
DEBT TRANSFERRED: E. SLATE → M. QUINN.
AMOUNT: FULL AUDIT ACCESS.
TERM: PERMANENT.
"Mara," I said.
"What?"
"You need to see this."
She came over, looked at the page. Her face went pale.
"That's not possible," she said.
"It's in the book."
"I never—"
"I know. But it says Slate transferred the debt to you. Full audit access. Permanent term."
"That means—"
"That means you've been the key the whole time. He's been using your access to run the engine."
She stared at the page. Then at me. Then at the woman on the floor, still bleeding, still conscious.
"Is that true?" Mara asked her.
"Go to hell," the woman said.
Mara put the gun to her head. "Is. That. True."
The woman laughed. Wet and broken. "You really don't know, do you?"
"Know what?"
"Who you work for. Who you've always worked for."
"Tell me."
"Check your own account, Quinn. Check the deposits. The ones you thought were bonuses. The ones that just showed up, no explanation, every time you closed a case."
Mara's hand started shaking. Just a little. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you've been on the payroll longer than he has." She nodded at me. "I'm saying Slate didn't transfer the debt. He inherited it. From you."
The ledger flared. I looked down. New text, scrolling fast.
PRIMARY CREDITOR: M. QUINN.
ORIGIN DATE: 6 YEARS, 4 MONTHS.
TOTAL COLLECTED: $47,000,000.
STATUS: ACTIVE.
I showed it to Mara. She read it twice. Then she looked at me.
"I didn't know," she said.
"I believe you."
"Do you?"
I didn't answer. Because the truth was, I didn't know what I believed anymore. The ledger was rewriting everything. Every debt, every favor, every lie. And if Mara was the primary creditor—if she'd been collecting for six years without knowing it—then who the hell was running the game?
The woman on the floor coughed. "Doesn't matter now. You're both marked. Slate's already moving."
"Moving where?" Mara asked.
"Everywhere. He's calling in every debt in the city. Everyone who owes, everyone who's owed. By morning, half the fixers in Cinderfall will be hunting you. And the other half will be dead."
She smiled. Blood on her teeth. "You should've taken the deal, Quinn."
Then the building shook. Just once. A deep, rolling boom from somewhere below us. The lights flickered, went out, came back dim.
"What was that?" I said.
"Garage," Mara said. "They're sealing us in."
I ran to the window. Looked down. The street was filling with cars. Black sedans. Vans. Men in suits, spreading out, covering every exit.
"We're trapped," I said.
"No." Mara grabbed my arm. "Roof."
"What?"
"There's a helipad. Service chopper comes twice a week. If we can get up there—"
"You think they haven't thought of that?"
"I think it's the only way out."
Another boom. Closer this time. The windows rattled.
"Move," Mara said.
We ran. Back into the hallway, toward the emergency stairs. Behind us, I heard the cleanup woman laughing. Then the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Then nothing.
We climbed. Fast as we could. My lungs burned, legs screaming, but I kept moving. Mara was ahead of me, taking the steps three at a time. At the twentieth floor, we heard voices above us. At the twenty-fifth, gunfire.
"They're already up there," I said.
"I know."
"So what's the plan?"
"Same as before. Go through them."
She checked her clip. Three rounds left. I checked mine. Four.
"Seven shots," I said. "How many guys you think are up there?"
"More than seven."
"Great."
"You got a better idea?"
"Run."
"Where?"
I didn't have an answer. So we kept climbing. At the thirtieth floor, the roof access door was locked. Mara shot the handle, kicked it open. We stumbled out into the night.
The helipad was empty. No chopper. No exit. Just open sky and thirty stories of drop.
And standing between us and the edge, gun leveled, smiling like he'd been waiting all night, was a man I'd never seen but somehow knew.
"Jace Vale," he said. "I've been looking for you."
"Who are you?" I asked.
But the ledger was already answering. The page turned itself, and there at the top, written in fresh ink that looked almost like blood, was one name.
Ephraim Slate.