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  "You promise you'll let her go?" I asked.

  Liv smirked. "Cross my heart."

  My death, on the other hand, was apparently a given, but I'd anticipated that the moment I walked through the door.

  I nodded slowly and began moving over to the computer terminal. Trey followed, gun trained on my chest. "Don't try anything clever. I'm going to bring up the root Alpha portal, and you're going to swipe your thumb for access, then back away. Understand?"

  "Yep."

  He opened the program. "All yours."

  I reached out, and then paused with my thumb over the pad. "You know this is really sweet," I said, gesturing between the two of them. "A real Cinderella story."

  A look of confusion crossed both their faces, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. I was staring at Sophia. For a second, she looked perplexed too, but then her eyes lit up as she recognised the safe word she'd picked the first time we were together. Bingo. I tried to draw a line between her and the floor with my eyes, and she gave a tiny nod. It would have to be enough.

  "Whatever. Get on with it," Trey said.

  I took a deep breath, and pressed down.

  And the room was plunged into darkness.

  There were two brief cries of surprise, and then the crack of gunfire, but I was already diving to the right. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough. Heat exploded through my arm and I stifled a scream. It was just a graze along my bicep, but it hurt like hell, and blood was already seeping through the ragged slash in my sleeve. I forced the pain away. I couldn't think about that now. If I went down, so did Sophia, and that was not an option.

  A few more bullets slammed into the darkness around me, one passing close enough that I could feel the wind of it on my face. I scuttled along the floor, fumbling blindly for the edge of the desk and pulling myself around it. I hadn't been sure it would work. I'd heard rumours about what happened when someone without authorisation tried to log into the central database, but nobody had ever been stupid enough to try. As I understood it, the whole system, lights, door locks, computers, was now locked down, and an alert had gone out over the network. In a few minutes, Alpha would be showing up here in force. Of course we still had to survive until they arrived.

  For a moment I thought that perhaps Sophia hadn't understood my message, but a split second later there was a loud crack, the sound of wood splintering. She'd thrown herself to the ground.

  "What the hell, Trey?" It was Liv's voice, and there was a tremble running through it now.

  He let out a howl and fired blindly again. "We checked everyone. It had to be you. It had to!" He sounded as though he was talking mostly to himself.

  There was a distant commotion outside. No doubt Trey's guards were trying to leap to his defence. But with the system down, all doors into this room had sealed themselves. They weren't getting in any time soon.

  Trey had gone quiet now, apparently realising that sound was everything when you were fighting in the dark. Sophia, however, was still audible. Judging by the noise it had made, the chair had broken when she fell, but she still had to extricate herself from the remains. If I didn't distract them, it wouldn't be long before they found her.

  It was incredibly disorienting being in pitch darkness. My mind's eye knew roughly where I'd landed, but with no point of reference I felt lost, like I was swimming in a sea of nothingness. I groped behind me where I thought the bookshelf should be, but all I snatched was empty air. I could still hear Sophia struggling to my right somewhere.

  "Trey?" said Liv again.

  "Quiet," he hissed. His voice had moved now. It was in the centre of the room. I was running out of time.

  Finally, my hands found something solid, the leather spine of a book. I slipped it from the shelf as quietly as I could and then hurled it towards where I'd last heard Trey. I don't know if I struck anyone, but there were two startled screams as the book collided with something, and another bullet zinged into the furniture to my right.

  I threw several more, sliding softly along the ground, never staying the same spot. Judging by the yelp of pain, at least one of my projectiles hit its mark, but it wasn't enough. At best I was just delaying them by a few moments. Trey had stopped firing now, knowing the muzzle flash gave him away. I debated simply charging the area where I'd heard him cry out, but I doubted he was staying in one place, either. All that would do is make me an easy target.

  I wracked my brain for a way to locate him in the darkness. His mistake had given us a chance, but he still had the advantage. He was armed and I was wounded. Even through the endorphins flooding my brain, my arm was burning like crazy. It wouldn't kill me, but I was already feeling woozy and light-headed. I needed to end this soon.

  I fumbled through my pockets looking for anything that might give me an edge. Keys, wallet, phone.

  Phone.

  And just like that, something clicked into place in my head.

  Burying it beneath my jacket, I took a moment to steady my quivering thumb, then I swiped the screen. I had to be quick. I was shielding the light as best I could, but in the pitch darkness it could still give me away. Fortunately, on this unit I only had one number in my favourites list. Sophia's.

  I mashed the call button, then locked the screen once more, stuffing it into my pocket to hide the noise. Trey had used her phone to text me just half an hour earlier. I hoped to god he was still carrying it.

  After a few agonising seconds, I was rewarded with a chime just a few meters to my left. It was one of those abrasive, pre-programmed ringtones, and it sounded impossibly loud in the blackness. Someone gasped, and I prepared to charge towards the noise, but then another gunshot rang out.

  For a moment, I was overcome with confusion. Trey had the only gun, and the shot hadn't come from the same place as the call sound. But then Liv spoke, and I understood.

  "What?" Her voice was soft, but full of disbelief, the phone still ringing by her side. There was the sound of something heavy dropping to the floor.

  Trey let out a long shriek, and the pain of it was nearly enough to pin me in place. In spite of everything they'd done to us, and the years I'd already thought her dead, I still felt a burst of anguish myself, knowing that she'd been shot. But this was my opportunity, and Sophia's life still hung in the balance. I had to act.

  I launched myself into the darkness, hurling my body towards the source of the cry, praying that he was frozen in shock. My shoulder contacted something soft, and there was a grunt, and then we were tumbling to the ground. I wrestled blindly for his arm and two more shots sprayed into the darkness. The sound was loud enough to set my ear ringing. I was bigger than he was, but I was injured, and he was filled with the mad fury of a man with nothing left to lose. My wound was like fire, spreading all across my left side, as I wrestled him for control of the gun. Sophia must have removed her gag. I could hear her calling to me now, desperate and frightened, but I didn't have the oxygen to reply. Every ounce of me was going into this fight.

  Somehow, I pulled myself on top of him, wrapping my hand around his fingers and twisting, sending the gun skidding off into the blackness. He clawed at me with his free arm, snarling wordlessly, but with his body beneath mine, my superior weight came into play, and I managed to keep him at bay. But it wouldn't last. I could feel myself tiring.

  With one final surge of energy, I forced my way through his guard, seizing his hair and pulling it up before slamming his head back onto the floor. His body went limp.

  And just like that it was over.

  As the adrenaline faded, the rest of the world came back into focus. Sophia was still calling for me. "Sebastian? Please, answer me."

  "I'm okay," I replied hoarsely. "I'm okay."

  She let out a little sob. "I thought he'd shot you. I didn't understand what was going on. Are they...?"

  "I don't know." Dragging myself off Trey, I reached out to check his pulse. He was alive. I suspected I'd just knocked him unconscious. I turned towards where I'd heard Liv fall, s
earching for any sounds of life, but the darkness stayed silent. I couldn't bring myself to try and confirm it. I'd already felt her death once. "I think we're safe," I said.

  "What about them?" she asked, and I realised I could still hear the faint rattling of Trey's men trying to break their way inside.

  "These doors are deceptively strong. We'll be fine in here until the cavalry arrives."

  I searched until I found the gun. It was unlikely Trey or Liv would trouble us again, but I wasn't taking any chances.

  By the time I reached her, Sophia had shed the rest of her bonds. She was shivering and, as she burrowed into me, I ran my hand up and down her arm, despite knowing it wasn't the cold that chilled her.

  "What happened there?" she asked. "With the lights I mean? One moment I was sure we were dead, the next you were signalling at me, and then everything just went crazy."

  "They had the wrong guy."

  "So you're not the leader?"

  I shook my head. "Nope."

  She actually laughed. It was a tiny sound, but glorious too, and it seemed to release something inside me. "Then who the hell is it? Because I have to say, I was pretty sure it was you, too."

  At that moment, there were several gunshots outside. Sophia tensed.

  "It's okay. That'll be the good guys."

  The door opened, and in stepped Joe, flanked by several guards.

  "Well, aren't you two a sight?" he said.

  It took her a few moments to understand. "No. Way. You're in charge?"

  Joe grinned in amusement. "That's perfectly ridiculous, Sophia. After all, I'm just a driver."

  But she wasn't having any of it. She turned to me. "Does that make you second in charge?"

  "What happened to letting me keep some secrets?" I replied, but I kept my voice light. There was little reason to hide anything at this point.

  Soon, the room was swarming with people. Once it had become clear how stacked the odds were, The Syndicate soldiers outside had thrown down their weapons and surrendered. We hadn't lost a single man.

  Trey was still out cold, but nonetheless his stretcher was escorted out by an entire team of our best guys. I wasn't sure what exactly would become of him, but I was certain it wouldn't be pleasant. In our laws, the only crime worse than trying to kill a fellow brother is trying to hurt the group itself, and he'd committed both to extreme levels.

  Liv, on the other hand, wouldn't have the chance to be punished. Trey's bullet had taken her through the neck, nicking an artery, and she'd bled out, there in the dark. I couldn't even stomach to look at her body. My mind was still reeling from discovering she was alive. Dealing with her death for a second time was the last thing I needed.

  At some point, while everything was being dealt with, Sophia slipped away. I found her sitting on alone, on a stool, in the crumbling old bar at the front of the complex.

  "This is where it all started," she said as I approached. "If I hadn't snuck through the door that night, all of this would have played out differently."

  I nodded. I'd never believed much in fate or destiny. The idea of having no control over my life terrifies me to my core. But it was hard not to feel the divine hand of providence in all of this. How else could I have found the soul that so perfectly matched my own? The person that healed the wounds I'd thought were beyond repair?

  "Do you regret it?" I asked. "That night?"

  One side of her mouth curled up. "Not even for a second."

  Part of me thought that made her crazy, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. I pulled up a stool and joined her.

  "Is it over then?" she asked.

  "I'm almost scared to say yes, but I think, this time, it actually is. We still have a lot of cleaning up to do. I expect once Trey tells us what we need to know, the group will be moving against The Syndicate ASAP. It will be messy, but it needs to be done. With any luck, things will be back to normal in a few weeks."

  She nodded, and for about thirty seconds we sat in silence. "I'm sorry about Liv," she said eventually.

  I exhaled slowly. "Now that was a surprise."

  She reached out and took my hand. "Are you okay?"

  I didn't answer straight away. After all of the betrayal and deception, and with all of the hurdles still to come, I felt like I mostly definitely should not be okay. But sitting there, with her fingers laced through mine, the worst of our problems finally in the rear view mirror, all I felt was a strange sense of contentment.

  "You know, I actually am."

  EPILOGUE

  Sophia

  The period after it was all over was a bit of a blur. Having learned my lesson, I stayed close to Sebastian for a few days, making sure all the loose ends were tied up.

  When we were confident it was well and truly over, Sebastian moved back into his apartment and I went with him. He'd organised a crew to come through and fix the damage to my place, but I wasn't ready to go back there yet. Maybe I never would be. Sleeping alone still held a lot of terrors for me. I doubted I'd fully get over my experiences for some time.

  Surprisingly, it was kind of difficult to adjust to a normal life again. After the constant adrenaline, the daily grind felt a little muted, a little dull. I wasn't stupid enough to actually miss all the peril and the betrayal and the men with guns, but there was a certain mystique to having been involved in that clandestine world that, in retrospect, I could almost romanticise.

  Despite the fact that we were living together, Sebastian and I didn't get much time alone for the next few weeks. The Alpha Group was in turmoil over everything that had happened, and there was an awful lot of cleaning up to do. I missed him. After everything we'd been through together, that powerful sense of 'us versus the world', it felt strange to suddenly be apart once more. But I tried to use that time to focus on getting back into my old rhythm. My boss was pleased to have me back, and I assured him that this time it was for good. A few days later, the promotion he'd hinted at officially came through, and I became a senior associate. There was something extra satisfying about the idea of not just being promoted, but stepping into Jennifer's shoes. I had no doubt I'd be up to the task.

  I even managed to fit in a little pre-hens night with the girls, which left me with a headache to rival anything Trey had injected me with.

  "I knew that skank had to have a secret!" said Ruth, when I filled her in on what had happened with Jennifer.

  "Yeah, talk about sleeping your way to the top," agreed Lou.

  "The worst part is that it was with Alan," I said, suppressing a shudder. "No promotion under the sun is worth that."

  "Well, I'm glad things are back on track," said Lou.

  Ruth's smile turned playful. "Speaking of back on track, you hinted on the phone that Sex-On-Legs had a change of heart too."

  I grinned at the nickname. "It looks that way."'

  "Well, that's awesome," she replied. "If any other woman is going to have him, I'm glad it's you."

  "You never had him at all!"

  Her smile widened and she tapped the side of her head. "Up here I did."

  I laughed. "I choose to take that as a compliment."

  "And so you should. Just don't go getting any ideas about diamond rings and screaming toddlers, like this one here," she said, nodding to Lou, "or I may have to disown you both."

  "Oh don't be so dramatic," replied Lou. "Once Soph squeezes one or two out and settles down in the burbs, you can come around on Fridays and play charades with us!"

  Ruth's face twisted in mock horror.

  "I'm not sure there will be much settling in our immediate future," I told them. "After all, I have a partnership ladder to climb."

  In truth, I had been feeling a little uncertain about the future, but not for that reason. It was one thing Sebastian and I had yet to talk about. The events of the last few weeks had shown the depth of his feelings for me, and I returned them just as strongly. But now that things were returning to normal, and the adrenaline was fading, the reality of that commitment w
as sinking in. For better or for worse I'd fallen for a man with some rather unique obligations, and I didn't know exactly what they meant for us. I had no objections about the way our life was now; in fact, it felt a little like I was living in some kind of dream, but was that going to be our life forever? Were the things Ruth joked about permanently out of reach?

  All I knew was that I loved him and wanted to be with him, and I figured we'd work it out as we went along.

  A week or so later, Sebastian surprised me with another trip to Mi Casa. It was every bit as warm and welcoming as I remembered, with several waiters I only dimly recognised welcoming me like an old friend. The food was incredible again, and since I knew what was coming, I buzzed with anticipation for the entire meal.

  As the plates were cleared, and the music started, Sebastian stood and held out his hand. "May I have this dance, my lady?"

  This time there was no hesitation. "Certainly, sir," I replied with a giggle.

  We danced for what felt like hours, our bodies slowly igniting each other with sensuous rhythm. I half expected him to pull me aside again, to relieve the tension, but much to my disappointment, he restrained himself.

  Eventually, he guided me to the edge of the crowd, and then towards the door. I didn't have to ask where we were going.

  It was much warmer outside than the last time he'd brought me here, and even up on the headland, utterly exposed to the elements, there was only a soft sea breeze. We settled on the grass, just a few metres from the cliff's edge, and nestled against one another, gazing out over the dark water.

  "This really is a spectacular view," I said.

  He nodded, but didn't reply, his brow slightly furrowed in contemplation.

  "Is everything okay?" I asked.

  He blinked several times, then turned to me, his lips curling into a smile. "Everything is perfect." He planted a kiss on the top of my head. "I do want to talk to you about something, though."