The silence stretched like a held breath, thick and suffocating, as if the very air inside the fifty-second floor had frozen. Isla could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears..one, two, three., each beat so loud she was certain it would betray her. The faint rattle of the spray bottles on her cart had already broken the stillness. The sound had been small, insignificant, but in that eerie quiet, it was a gunshot. Someone knew she was here.
She pressed herself flatter against the marble wall, praying to disappear into its cold veins. Her skin prickled where the stone met her cheek, the chill cutting through the thin polyester of her uniform. Maybe they'd think it was nothing. Maybe they'd chalk it up to the building settling, to the groans of pipes or wind against glass. Maybe..
"Check the hallway."
The voice was low, smooth, cultured, yet carrying an iron weight that brooked no hesitation. It wasn't a request. It was a command.
Isla's stomach dropped.
Footsteps. Steady, deliberate. Coming closer.
Her mind spiraled through options at lightning speed. The service elevator..too far. The emergency stairs..too long, too exposed. The executive elevator just a few yards away was her only chance, but reaching it meant abandoning her cart, crossing the slick expanse of marble, and praying the noise didn't echo like cannon fire.
The conference room door opened with a soft, terrible click.
Isla ran.
Her rubber-soled shoes betrayed her, squeaking against the gleaming marble with each desperate stride. The sound ricocheted down the corridor, a beacon for anyone listening. Behind her came a sharp curse, then the unmistakable sound of pursuit.
"There's someone here!" the same voice barked. "A witness."
Panic roared through her veins, but she forced herself to focus on the elevator panel ahead. She slammed her palm against the call button again and again, as though sheer desperation might conjure the car faster. The glowing numbers above the door crawled at an agonizing pace forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine.
"Stop right there."
The words froze her blood.
Slowly, Isla turned.
The man facing her across the corridor was a shadow pulled into flesh. He looked like the portrait that hung in Blackstone Industries' glittering lobby, the sharp jawline, the steel-gray eyes, but colder, older, crueler. Where Adrian Blackstone's painted likeness suggested intelligence and unyielding ambition, this man radiated something darker. Violence. Ruthlessness. The kind of power that didn't just demand obedience, it consumed it.
Blood spattered his thousand-dollar suit. He held a gun with the casual ease of a man who'd pointed it before, who'd pulled the trigger before.
Marcus Blackstone. Adrian's cousin. The whispered name employees never said too loudly. The man people claimed was the true puppeteer of the empire.
"Well, well." Marcus tilted his head, studying her as though she were an insect under glass. "What do we have here? A little mouse scurrying where she shouldn't."
Isla's throat tightened until it hurt. Her voice barely scraped out. "I was just cleaning. I didn't see anything."
"Didn't you?" Marcus stepped closer. The coppery tang of blood clung to him like cologne, mixing with the faint spice of his expensive aftershave. His eyes gleamed with something both amused and predatory. "Then why are you running?"
Her chest burned with the effort to breathe. Behind her, the elevator chimed. Salvation.
"Because," she forced out, though her voice trembled, "you're pointing a gun at me."
For a moment, silence. Then Marcus laughed. Not a warm sound, not even human. It was sharp, brittle, like glass shattering under pressure.
"Smart girl," he said softly. "But not smart enough to mind her own business."
The elevator doors slid open. Isla didn't hesitate. She threw herself backward into the car, jabbing the button for the lobby over and over. Marcus raised his weapon, but the steel doors closed between them just in time.
His voice slithered through the narrowing gap: "Find out who she is."
The descent was endless.
Fifty-two floors had never felt so far. Her knees buckled halfway down, and she slumped against the cold metal wall, her hands trembling uncontrollably. Her breath came in shallow bursts, each one dragging the memory back, the glass walls of the conference room, the marble floor slick with spreading red, the still body of James Crawford.
She hadn't lied to Marcus. She hadn't seen the shot itself. But she had seen enough. The lifeless body. The blood blooming beneath his head like spilled wine on ivory. Marcus standing calmly above him, his phone already in hand, issuing orders with clinical detachment.
"Clean this up. Make it look like Crawford never came here tonight."
James Crawford. The name struck her like a blow. She knew it, she'd glimpsed it in reports while emptying bins, in the thick stacks of papers she sometimes lingered over when no one was watching. He was..had been a senior accountant. One of the men who handled the heart of Blackstone Industries' wealth. The kind of man who would notice irregularities. Who would ask questions.
And now he was gone.
The elevator chimed softly at the lobby. Isla staggered out, leaving her cart abandoned fifty-two floors above. The night security guard barely glanced up from his newspaper.
"You're early, Martinez. Shift doesn't end until six."
"Emergency at home," she rasped, swiping her card with a shaking hand. "Family thing."
He nodded, uninterested. Another invisible crisis from another invisible worker.
Isla pushed through the glass doors into the pre-dawn chill of Manhattan. The October air slapped her skin, sharp and clean. She welcomed it. Anything to clear the suffocating image of Marcus Blackstone's smile from her mind.
She needed to call the police. That's what anyone would do. But as she pulled out her phone with trembling fingers, reality came crashing down.
What proof did she have? By the time the police arrived, the body would be gone, the blood scrubbed clean, the conference room shining as though nothing had happened. Her word—a janitor with a gambling-addicted father and mountains of debt—against Marcus Blackstone. A man who owned the city in all the ways that mattered.
And if she spoke, they'd know. They'd know exactly who she was. Where she lived. Where Emma was being treated.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number: 'Don't do anything stupid. We're watching'.
Her gaze lifted, almost against her will, to the glittering glass facade of Blackstone Industries. Fifty-two floors above, Marcus Blackstone was likely sipping aged scotch while his people scrubbed blood from marble. And somewhere in that tower, someone was pulling up her file. Reading her history. Marking every weakness.
A sleek black sedan with tinted windows eased up to the curb across the street.
Isla's breath caught.
It hadn't been there when she left.
She forced herself to walk calm, measured steps toward the subway station. Running would scream guilt, would paint a target on her back. But her skin crawled with the sensation of eyes boring into her, following her every move.
Down the cracked concrete steps, into the stale heat of the underground tunnels. Only then, as the train roared into the station, did she let herself breathe. Her life, the endless cycle of shifts, medical bills, and exhaustion..was gone. In its place was something darker, sharper, a game she hadn't chosen but would have to play.
By the time the downtown train screeched into motion, she'd already made her decision.
Tomorrow night, she would go back.
Not because Marcus Blackstone demanded it. But because survival meant something her mother's death and Emma's illness had already taught her
Sometimes, the only way to live was to stop being prey.
Behind her, the black sedan's engine purred to life.
Fifty-two floors above, Marcus Blackstone stood at his office window, watching the tiny figure vanish into the subway's mouth. In the reflection of the glass, he noticed a glint of silver—a small security mirror mounted in the corridor outside. He smiled. The little mouse had been more visible than she realized.
He reached for his phone. Isla Martinez wasn't the only member of her family with debts.
And everyone, eventually, had a price.