CHAPTER 19

For one full second, nobody in the group thread said anything at all. Carter stood frozen near the lobby wall, watching Mark stride out of the elevator car with the brisk, self-important energy of a man who had never once in his life considered that anyone might be actively working against him. He didn't look toward the service corridor. He didn't look toward Carter at all. His attention was entirely on his phone, thumb scrolling through something that had put a faint, irritated frown on his face.

"He's here," Carter breathed into his earpiece, forcing his voice level. "Lobby. Walking toward the executive elevators. He hasn't clocked me."

"Chloe, status," Viktor's voice cut in, tight and controlled in a way that made the danger feel more real than any amount of shouting would have.

Chloe was three floors up, the service elevator doors half-closed, Barnaby pressed against her leg with the instinctive stillness of an animal who could feel tension even when he didn't understand its source. "Doors are closing. If he takes the executive elevator, we're not on the same car. We should be fine."

"Should," Gavin repeated, not for the first time that evening, and Chloe wished, fervently, that he would stop saying that word.

The doors slid shut with a soft chime, the service car beginning its slow descent, and for a moment the only sound in Chloe's ear was her own pulse and Barnaby's steady breathing against her leg.

"He's in the executive car," Carter reported, watching the doors close on Mark's oblivious, scowling face. "Going up. You're clear."

Chloe exhaled, the sound shaky even to her own ears. "Copy that. Please tell me nobody wants to do this again next week."

"Depends what we find in Mark's apartment when he gets there and realizes his dog is missing," Viktor said. "Which, statistically, should be in about four minutes."

---

The service elevator opened onto a loading dock at the rear of the building, where Viktor was waiting with the calm efficiency of a man who had planned for precisely this scenario and several worse ones besides. He took Barnaby's leash without a word, crouching briefly to let the dog sniff his hand before straightening and gesturing toward a car idling at the curb, engine already running, headlights off.

"Elena's waiting three blocks over," he said. "We're not taking him straight to her building. Too obvious a connection if anyone's watching for it."

"You really have done this before," Chloe said, still catching her breath.

"I told you. Eleven years." Viktor loaded Barnaby's bed and bowl into the back seat with practiced efficiency. "Get in. You did well tonight, for someone with no training."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation. Possibly also a compliment." Viktor's mouth twitched, the ghost of something almost like humor. "Elena will want a full report. I'd recommend leaving out the part where you stopped to pet him instead of moving immediately."

Chloe's face went warm. "You saw that?"

"I see everything on those cameras. It's the job." But there was no real reprimand in his voice, just the dry observation of a man who, Chloe was beginning to suspect, cared rather more about the dog's welfare than his flat delivery ever let on.

---

Three blocks over, in a car with the heat running against the evening chill, Elena was waiting exactly where she'd said she'd be, and the moment Barnaby climbed in beside her and immediately curled into her lap like he'd known her his whole life, something in her chest loosened that she hadn't realized was wound so tight.

"Hey there," she murmured, running a hand along his back, feeling the too-prominent ridge of his spine beneath thinning fur. "You're safe now. Nobody's going to leave you alone again."

Chloe climbed in on the other side, breathless and grinning despite the adrenaline still coursing through her. "We did it. We actually did it."

"You did it," Elena corrected. "You're the one who walked in there and got him out."

"With an earpiece full of people telling me what to do the whole time."

"Still counts." Elena's phone buzzed — Carter, confirming the lobby was clear, Mark safely upstairs and none the wiser. She let out a breath she'd been holding for the better part of an hour. "He's going to notice within minutes."

"What do we do when he does?"

"Nothing," Elena said, scratching gently behind Barnaby's ears, watching his tail thump weakly against the seat in something that might have been the first real contentment he'd felt in weeks. "We let him wonder. We let him panic. And we make absolutely sure there's nothing that traces back to any of us."

Chloe glanced at her, something thoughtful crossing her face. "You're good at this. The covering-your-tracks part."

"I've had practice," Elena said, quieter now, thinking of stale logins and hang-up calls and a brother who wouldn't tell her the truth. "More than I'd like, lately."

Neither of them said anything else for a while, the car pulling away from the curb, Barnaby's steady breathing the only sound between them as the city lights slid past the windows.

"Can I ask you something?" Chloe said eventually, watching Elena's hand move in slow, absent circles along the dog's back. "You barely know this dog. You've never even met him before tonight. Why does this matter so much to you?"

Elena was quiet for a moment, choosing her words carefully. "Because I know what it feels like to be the thing someone else stopped paying attention to. Not literally — nobody left me alone in an apartment for two days. But there's a version of that feeling that doesn't need a leash or a locked door. Just somebody deciding you're not worth the effort anymore, and you having no say in it."

"Mark."

"Mark," Elena confirmed. "Among others, if I'm honest." She glanced down at Barnaby, who had gone fully limp against her, trusting and unbothered by the weight of the conversation happening above him. "He didn't do anything to deserve being an afterthought. Neither did I, for what it's worth. So when I got the chance to actually fix it for someone — even someone with four legs and no opinions about corporate espionage — I wasn't going to pass it up."

Chloe was quiet for a moment, something in her expression softening into genuine warmth. "That's a good reason."

"It's the only reason I needed." Elena managed a small, tired smile. "Thank you, by the way. For tonight. For caring enough to say something in the first place."

"Least I could do." Chloe reached over to scratch Barnaby's head, and he leaned into her hand with the same easy trust he'd shown her in the apartment. "Someone had to."

One small, reckless act of mercy complete — and no way yet to know what it would cost any of them once Mark discovered what, and who, he'd truly lost.