Adriana's POV
"Sixty seconds," Elena said calmly, like she was announcing the time instead of our deaths.
My mind raced. The door was locked. Windows were reinforced. No way out. And somewhere in this room, bombs were counting down.
Dominic grabbed the chair his mother was tied to, trying to lift her. "We have to move her!"
"Fifty seconds." Elena raised her gun. "Stop."
He froze.
"You're insane," Marcus said, backing toward the window. "You'll kill yourself too!"
"I told you—I've made my peace with that." Elena's finger moved to the trigger. "Better to die a legend than live in a cage."
My eyes darted around the room, desperate for something, anything. That's when I saw it—a letter opener on Elena's desk. Small. Sharp. Maybe enough.
"Forty-five seconds."
I had one chance. One move before we all died.
"Elena," I said, stepping forward slowly. "You win. Okay? You win. Just let Victoria go. She's innocent in all this."
Elena laughed. "Innocent? She betrayed me. There's no greater sin."
"But she's a mother. You understand that, don't you? The need to protect the people you love?"
Something flickered in Elena's eyes. For just a second, her gun lowered slightly.
I lunged.
Grabbed the letter opener. Threw it with everything I had.
It wasn't a perfect throw. Wasn't even a good throw. But it hit Elena's gun hand and she yelped, dropping the weapon.
"Thirty seconds!" Marcus shouted.
Dominic dove for his mother, ripping at the ropes. I ran to help him. Marcus grabbed Elena's gun.
"Where's the detonator?" Marcus aimed the gun at Elena. "Where is it?"
Elena just smiled, blood dripping from her hand. "You can't stop it. It's automatic."
"Twenty-five seconds!"
The ropes came loose. Victoria gasped as Dominic pulled the gag from her mouth.
"The window!" she croaked. "Reinforced but not bulletproof!"
Marcus didn't hesitate. He aimed Elena's gun and fired. Once. Twice. Three times. Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass.
"Again!" I screamed.
He emptied the gun. The window shattered.
"Twenty seconds!"
We ran to the window. Five floors up. No fire escape. Just open air and a concrete sidewalk far below.
"We'll never survive that jump," Dominic said.
"Better than being blown to pieces!" Marcus was already climbing onto the windowsill.
That's when I saw it—a ledge. Narrow, maybe six inches wide, running along the outside of the building to the next window over.
"Fifteen seconds!"
"The ledge!" I pointed. "We can climb across to the next room!"
It was suicide. The ledge was tiny. One wrong step and we'd fall. But staying meant guaranteed death.
Marcus went first, inching out onto the ledge. Wind whipped at him. Five stories of nothing below.
"Ten seconds!"
Victoria went next, Dominic holding her steady. Then Dominic. Then me.
I was halfway out the window when I looked back.
Elena sat at her desk, perfectly calm, watching us. She smiled and mouthed two words: "See you in hell."
"Five seconds! Move!" Dominic shouted.
I scrambled onto the ledge. The wind hit me and I pressed against the building, terrified. Below, people on the street looked like ants.
"Four!"
We inched along the ledge, feet sliding on the narrow stone. My fingers scraped against brick, searching for handholds.
"Three!"
Marcus reached the next window. Started kicking it.
"Two!"
The glass cracked.
"One!"
Marcus crashed through the window. Dominic shoved his mother after him. Grabbed my hand. Pulled.
We dove through the window as the explosion roared behind us.
The blast wave threw us across the room. Heat seared my back. I hit the floor hard, rolling, covering my head as debris rained down.
Then silence. Terrible, ringing silence.
I lifted my head. Smoke filled the room. My ears screamed with tinnitus. But I was alive.
"Marcus?" I croaked.
"Here." He appeared through the smoke, bloodied but moving. "Still breathing."
"Dominic?"
"I'm okay." He was kneeling beside his mother, checking her pulse. "Mom's unconscious but alive."
Through the broken window, I could see flames pouring from the room we'd just escaped. The entire judge's chambers was gone. Just fire and twisted metal.
Elena was dead. Had to be. No one could survive that.
"We need to leave," Marcus said, coughing. "Before this whole floor comes down."
We helped Victoria up. She was barely conscious, mumbling incoherently. Dominic carried her toward the door.
The hallway was chaos. Sprinklers had activated, water pouring down. Smoke alarms wailed. People ran everywhere, screaming.
We joined the crowd rushing for the stairs. Down five flights, legs shaking, lungs burning. Finally burst out onto the street.
Fire trucks were already arriving. Paramedics rushed toward us. Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Someone else checked my eyes with a light.
"Are you hurt?" a paramedic asked.
"I don't know." My whole body felt numb. "I don't think so."
Through the chaos, I found Dominic. He stood beside the ambulance where they were loading his mother, looking lost.
I walked over. Touched his arm.
He turned and something in his face broke. He pulled me into a fierce hug, and I let him, because we'd both just survived the impossible.
"It's over," he whispered into my hair. "It's finally over."
I wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe we'd won.
But something felt wrong. Some instinct screaming that we'd missed something important.
"The flash drive," I said suddenly, pulling back. "Marcus, do you still have it?"
Marcus patted his pockets. Went pale. "It was in my jacket. I left my jacket in that room when we—"
"It's gone," I finished. "The only copy just burned up with Elena."
We stared at each other in horror.
Yes, we'd uploaded the files. But Elena's people would be working right now to scrub everything from the internet. Without the original flash drive, without physical evidence, how would we prove any of it was real?
"It doesn't matter," Dominic said. "People saw it. Thousands of people. They can't erase what everyone already knows."
"Can't they?" I asked. "Elena had judges, cops, FBI agents working for her. What's to stop them from calling it fake? Calling it a hoax? Discrediting everything we—"
My phone buzzed. Unknown number. I answered without thinking.
"Very clever, Ms. Vale."
My blood turned to ice. I knew that voice.
"Elena?" I whispered.
Dominic's head snapped toward me. "That's impossible."
"I'm hard to kill," Elena's voice was raspy, pained, but unmistakably alive. "Though I must admit, you came closer than anyone ever has."
"Where are you?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" She coughed wetly. "Don't worry. I'm not calling for revenge. I'm calling to make you an offer."
"I don't make deals with murderers."
"Not even to save Marcus Chen's sister?"
Everything stopped.
"What?" I looked at Marcus. His face had gone white.
"You didn't know?" Elena laughed. "Marcus has a younger sister. Emily. Twenty-three years old. Graduate student at Columbia. And as of ten minutes ago, she's my guest."
"You're lying," Marcus said, grabbing the phone. "Emily's in class. She's—"
"Check your messages, Marcus. I sent you a photo."
Marcus pulled out his phone. His hands shook as he opened his texts. Then he made a sound like he'd been punched.
He showed me the screen.
A photo of a young woman tied to a chair, terrified eyes staring at the camera. The resemblance to Marcus was unmistakable.
"What do you want?" I asked Elena.
"Simple. You have twenty-four hours to recant everything. Tell the media you made it all up. Say the files were fake, created by you to frame me out of revenge for what happened five years ago. Convince everyone you're a vengeful liar, and I'll let Emily live."
"And if we don't?"
"Then Emily Chen dies very slowly, and I make sure you watch every second of it." Elena's voice hardened. "Twenty-four hours, Ms. Vale. Choose wisely. The truth, or an innocent girl's life. You can't have both."
The line went dead.
We stood there in the rain, surrounded by fire trucks and police and chaos. We'd destroyed Elena's empire. Uploaded proof of her crimes. Survived her attempt to kill us.
And somehow, she'd still found a way to win.
Marcus was shaking. "My sister. She has my sister."
"We'll get her back," Dominic said.
"How?" Marcus's voice cracked. "We don't even know where Elena is. She could be anywhere. Could have Emily anywhere."
He was right. We'd used all our resources, burned all our bridges. The flash drive was gone. The FBI couldn't be trusted. We had nothing.
Except one thing.
I pulled out my phone. Scrolled through my contacts to a name I hadn't called in years.
"What are you doing?" Dominic asked.
"Calling in a favor from someone who owes me." I hit dial. "Someone dangerous enough that even Elena should be afraid."
The phone rang twice.
Then a voice I recognized answered. Deep. Cold. Completely without mercy.
"Adriana Vale. I wondered when you'd finally call."
"I need your help, Vincent. And I'm willing to pay any price."
Vincent Moretti—the crime boss I'd put behind bars seven years ago. The man who'd sworn he'd kill me the moment he got out of prison.
The man who'd been released three months ago.
"Any price?" Vincent's laugh sent chills down my spine. "Then come see me tonight. Alone. We'll discuss terms."
He hung up.
Dominic grabbed my arm. "Adriana, no. Vincent Moretti will kill you."
"Maybe. But he's the only one with the resources to find Elena before she kills Emily." I met his eyes. "Sometimes you have to make deals with the devil to save the innocent."
"You're using my own logic against me," Dominic said bitterly.
"I learned from the best."
I had twelve hours until my meeting with Vincent.
Twelve hours to decide if I was willing to trade my life for Emily's.
Twelve hours to figure out how to beat Elena once and for all.
And somewhere in the city, a young girl was counting on me to save her.
The war wasn't over.
It had just begun.