Chapter 1 - SOMEONE WAS ON TOP OF THE ELEVATOR
The elevator groaned once more.
Then everything became silent.
Declan’s hand dropped from Norah’s shoulder.
His face changed.
“Get behind me.”
“I thought the brakes would hold.”
“They are.”
“Then what?”
He lifted one finger.
Norah listened.
At first, nothing.
Then she heard it.
Metal scraping against metal.
Above them.
Someone was moving across the roof of the elevator car.
Declan looked toward the ceiling hatch.
“They didn’t wait for gravity.”
Norah’s pulse exploded.
A tiny click came from above.
Then another.
Declan grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the center of the car just as something sharp punched through the ceiling panel.
A drill.
Someone was trying to open the emergency hatch from above.
Norah stared.
“You said your people would come.”
“My people don’t drill through elevator roofs.”
The hatch lock snapped.
Declan moved beneath it.
“Stay against the wall.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Complain to building management.”
Despite everything, Norah almost laughed.
The hatch jerked upward.
A gloved hand appeared.
Then a man dropped halfway through.
Declan caught him before his feet reached the floor.
The attacker swung.
Declan blocked the strike and drove him against the elevator wall.
The man recovered immediately and came at him again.
Declan’s injured body was slower this time.
The attacker slammed him into the control panel.
Norah saw a metal tool in the man’s hand.
Not a gun.
A heavy maintenance wrench.
He raised it.
Norah grabbed the emergency fire extinguisher from beneath the panel and sprayed him directly in the face.
He cursed and turned.
Declan moved.
One hard strike.
The attacker collapsed against the floor.
Then another sound came from the roof.
A second man.
“Norah!”
Declan pulled her aside as the second attacker dropped down.
The man charged.
Declan caught his jacket and redirected him into the rail.
He rose again almost immediately.
Declan drove him down a second time and pinned him there.
“Stay down.”
The attacker laughed through bloodied lips.
“You’re already dead, Gallagher.”
A booming noise echoed through the shaft.
Then voices.
Real ones.
“Mr. Gallagher!”
Declan looked up.
“That’s my team.”
Minutes later, emergency crews forced open the elevator doors between floors twenty-five and twenty-six.
Norah crawled through first.
Declan followed only after she was safely out.
His security chief, Liam O’Rourke, rushed toward him.
“Boss, what the hell happened?”
Declan looked at the two attackers being restrained.
“Someone cut the emergency line.”
Liam’s face hardened.
“We’ll find them.”
Norah knelt beside the nearest attacker while paramedics approached.
Something silver had fallen from his pocket.
A building access badge.
Gallagher Enterprises.
Maintenance Division.
Valid.
Issued that morning.
She picked it up carefully.
Declan saw it.
“So this came from inside.”
The attacker opened one swollen eye.
Then looked directly at Norah.
A strange smile appeared.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Norah froze.
“Know what?”
His gaze moved toward Declan.
Then back to her.
“Ask him about Row Forty-Two.”
Norah’s stomach dropped.
The same spreadsheet cell she had approved hours earlier.
Three million dollars.
Waste management.
May you like
Declan slowly turned toward her.
“What is Row Forty-Two?”
