Chapter 27 · Void on Sight

Chapter 27: Void on Sight

The cable hit the concrete inches from Luca's skull, and sparks exploded across my shoes.

"Move!" I grabbed his collar and hauled him sideways, and we went down together on the warehouse floor while the severed line whipped and hissed like something alive, chewing a black scar into the concrete where his head had been a second before.

"You pulled me," he said, flat on his back, staring up at me like that surprised him more than the live wire did.

"Don't get used to it."

We ran. The tape box was clamped against my ribs so hard it left a bruise before we even hit the car, and the warehouse burned orange behind us the whole way to the press hall, like it was chasing us there on purpose. My father's people had scheduled the signing for nine. We made it at eight fifty-eight, soot in my hair, blood on Luca's cuff, two minutes before some judge my father owns could stamp his name on paper that erased a federal audit trail.

Now we stood under camera lights instead of fire, and somehow that felt worse.

"You're late," my father said into the microphone,