01:27 a.m. – Barbican, Silk Street entrance.
The rain had turned vicious, needles of ice against the concrete brutalism of the Barbican. The Aston Martin was a flaming memory back in Canary Wharf; the Jubilee Line had spat them out at the private residents' lift hidden behind the arts centre. Mira keyed in a sixteen-digit code with blood-slick fingers. The lift opened like a vault.
Forty-second floor. Corridor lit only by motion-sensor strips the colour of morgue fluorescents.
Mira's flat occupied the entire north-east corner. Door: brushed titanium, no handle, iris scanner. The lock sighed open. Inside was money that pretended not to care: black oak floors, one Basquiat original, floor-to-ceiling glass looking straight down the throat of the City. A single red neon sign above the bar glowed in Cantonese: 狼來了 – "The wolf has come".
Gareth locked the door behind them, threw three deadbolts that hadn't existed on any blueprint.
"Safe house?" he asked.
"Safe enough for tonight." She kicked the ruined dress away, now wearing only black lace and gun-oil residue. "Shower's through there. I'll make coffee and find us both something that isn't on fire."
He didn't move. "You first. I need the terminal."
She arched a brow, walked barefoot to a blank wall, pressed her palm against it. A panel slid aside revealing a military-grade workstation: triple encrypted, air-gapped until she plugged the black USB in. Lines of code began to crawl across four curved monitors.
Gareth stripped off the torn jacket, rolled his shoulders. The scar tissue on his back caught the neon: old burns, shrapnel kisses, a map of places London preferred to forget.
Mira watched him in the reflection. "You still sleep with the light on?"
"Only when I dream about drowning in paperwork."
She laughed once, low and dangerous, then turned back to the screens.
"ORPHEUS-9 is nested nine shells deep. Ultimate beneficial owner masked behind a Liechtenstein Stiftung. But look who the authorised signatory is." She tapped a key. A passport photo filled the centre screen.
Sebastian Harrow. Forty-four. Old Etonian. Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister. The man who personally countersigned Gareth's death certificate in 2022.
"Pretty boy grew up," Gareth murmured.
"Pretty boy grew teeth. He's running the entire wash cycle. Tomorrow at 09:00 the money lands, markets open, and every regulator from the FCA to the FBI gets a dossier titled 'Gareth Winter – Terror Financier'. You'll be the most wanted man on earth by 09:05."
Gareth leaned in, voice like winter iron. "Then we pay Sebastian a visit before breakfast."
"His diary says he's at Annabel's tonight. Private room. Twenty armed security after the thing in Bali last month."
"Good. Saves me looking."
Mira spun in the chair, legs crossed, studying him the way a sniper studies wind. "You're going to walk into the most exclusive club in Mayfair with half of Albion Solutions still hunting us?"
"I'm going to walk in, drag him out by his Oxford tongue, and make him reverse every transaction before the sun comes up. You coming or not?"
She stood, closed the distance until they were breathing the same air.
"I was promised throats in three-piece suits," she whispered. "Try and stop me."
02:11 a.m.
They left the flat dressed for war disguised as wealth.
Gareth: midnight-blue peak-lapel dinner jacket, no tie, shoulder holster hidden under bespoke wool. Mira: backless black velvet column gown, slit to the hip, thigh holster holding a nickel-plated Sig P365. Hair pinned up with what looked like a diamond hairpin (actually a titanium ice-pick).
The lift dropped them to the underground garage. A matte-black 2024 Range Rover Sentinel waited, armour glass, run-flats, roof-mounted tear-gas canisters. Mira tossed him the keys.
"Try not to scratch this one."
They rolled out past the sleeping porters, turned south toward the river.
02:37 a.m. – Berkeley Square.
Annabel's basement entrance was quieter than usual; word of shots in Canary Wharf had made even the rich nervous. Two Albion contractors in Tom Ford suits checked invitations at the velvet rope. Gareth didn't slow. He stepped out, handed the first guard a black American Express Centurion.
The guard looked at the name embossed.
GARETH A. WINTER
His eyes flicked up, recognition, fear, hand reaching for the concealed pistol.
Too late.
Gareth drove his forehead into the man's nose, cartilage exploding. Mira's stiletto heel simultaneously crushed the second guard's instep; her diamond hairpin flashed once, burying itself in the carotid. Two bodies dropped soundlessly onto the Mayfair pavement.
Inside, the music was deep house and money. Beautiful people pretending they couldn't smell blood.
Gareth moved through them like smoke. Mira followed two steps behind, smiling at everyone and no one.
Top of the marble stairs. Private room 3. Gold plaque: RESERVED – MR HARROW & PARTY.
Four more Albion outside the door. This time they were ready.
The first one opened his mouth to shout. Gareth's suppressed Glock coughed twice. Two headshots, perfect grouping. The other two reached inside jackets; Mira's Sig spoke four times, soft and polite. They folded like expensive laundry.
Gareth kicked the door open.
Sebastian Harrow stood by the fireplace, champagne flute frozen halfway to his lips. Thirty other guests, politicians, hedge-fund princes, minor royalty, all turned to statues.
Sebastian's face drained of colour.
"Hello, Seb," Gareth said, voice carrying easily over the sudden silence. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
He stepped inside, gun level, smile sharp enough to shave with.
"Everybody else: out. You have ten seconds before I start counting bodies instead of heartbeats."
Chairs scraped. Heels clattered. Thirty seconds later the room was empty except for the fire, the champagne, and the man who had once signed Gareth Winter's death warrant.
Sebastian found his voice. "You're dead."
"Disappointed?" Gareth closed the door. Locked it. "Start typing, Seb. Every transfer reversed, every file deleted. You have until the bottle's empty."
He upended the Dom Pérignon 1996 over the Persian rug. Golden liquid hissed into silk.
Sebastian's hands shook as he opened the laptop on the table.
Mira leaned against the wall, lighting another cigarette off the fireplace.
Outside, in the distance, the first helicopters began to circle the West End.
Time was bleeding.
And the wolf was still hungry.