Against the Countdown

​The air on the forty-second floor of Vance Global Logistics did not smell like glass polish or expensive leather. It smelled like copper, crushed pine,the crisp, static charge that fills the air right before lightning hits an open field.

​I kept my leather boots light against the polished marble, my shoulder bag pressed tightly against my ribs. I paused near the shadow of a marble pillar, watching the sweep of the floor's exterior LED strip. Seven minutes. The night security guard on the north wing took exactly seven minutes before taking the elevator down to the lobby.

​I reached into my coat pocket, my thumb tracing the metal edge of a high-speed flash drive.

​My father had died three years ago with a ruined reputation and a frozen bank account, accused of embezzling eight million dollars from an offshore affiliate tied to Vance Global. The police had closed the file. The court had sealed the bankruptcy. But I knew accounting, and I knew my father. He was a man who re-balanced balance sheets for recreation. He hadn't stolen a dime.

​The real discrepancy sat inside Executive Suite B, the private vault office belonging to Kaelen Vance.

​I pulled out my master keycard, cloned four days ago from an unsuspecting senior associate at a downtown coffee shop, and pressed it against the reader. The indicator light flashed from red to a silent, steady blue. The heavy glass door slid open with a soft hiss.

​I stepped inside, my heart hammering against my ribs.

​The office was massive, shrouded in the dim, blue-tinted glare of the city skyline pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows. A dark oak desk spanned the center of the room, completely bare except for a closed monitor and a fountain pen.

​I didn't waste time on the desk. I moved directly to the private archive alcove behind the primary bookshelves. My fingers flew across the secondary keypad concealed behind a framed architectural blueprint, punching in the six-digit override code I had spent three weeks decrypting...click.

​The concealed steel cabinet popped open three inches. I pulled it wide, exposing rows of black leather ledgers, physical copies, off-the-grid accounting maintained alongside digital records. I pulled the top folder, labeled Ironbound Freight Holdings, and pulled out my portable document scanner.

​A sudden, violent thud echoed through the floorboards.

​I froze. The sound hadn't come from the hallway. It had come from the master inner office, the private suite behind the mahogany double doors.

​I cut the scanner light instantly, holding my breath,trying not to make a sound.

​Another sound followed, a low, raspy groan that sounded less like a man in pain and more like a heavy iron door dragging across concrete. It was deep, gut-wrenching, and reverberated straight through the soles of my shoes.

​I should have run. Every rational instinct built over twenty-six years told me to pocket the flash drive, step out the glass door, and disappear into the night. Instead, my boots moved forward, drawn toward the half-inch crack between the double doors.

​I leaned in, peering through the gap.

​Kaelen Vance wasn't sitting at a desk or pouring a drink. He was down on one knee in the center of the dark room, his broad back rigid beneath a bespoke charcoal suit coat that looked on the verge of tearing at the seams. His fingers were gripped around the edge of a heavy solid-oak coffee table, and as I watched, the thick wood gave a sharp crack, splintering under his bare knuckles.

​"Not tonight," Kaelen growled. His voice was a harsh, scraping bass that vibrated in my chest. "Not here."

​His shoulders convulsed. Under the tailored wool of his jacket, his spinal column rippled, heavy muscle and bone shifting in a fluid movement that defied human anatomy.

​I gasped, stepping backward.

​My heel caught the edge of a steel trash bin. It clattered against the wall with a sound like a gunshot in the silent suite, inside the room, the deep groaning stopped instantly.

​Silence slammed down on the forty-second floor, heavy...

​I turned to sprint toward the exit, but before my foot hit the carpet, the mahogany doors burst open with explosive force.

​A hand, impossibly broad, with skin so hot it scorched through my sleeve, clamped around my upper arm, throwing me backward into the dark private office. The heavy doors slammed shut behind us, the automatic lock turning with a sharp, final deadbolt click.

​I hit the leather sofa, scrambling upward, my fingers searching my coat for my emergency pepper spray. "Stay back! I'm armed, I..."

​"Quiet," a voice rasped from the dark.

​Kaelen Vance towered over me in the dim moonlight. His suit jacket lay discarded on the floor, shredded down the back seam. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, revealing dark, intricate marks tracer-patterned across his collarbone.

​But it was his face that made the blood run cold in my veins.

​His sharp, aristocratic jawline was tightened in intense physical agony, and his eyes, the cool, steel-grey eyes featured on every financial magazine in the country, were glowing a vivid, predatory, molten gold.

​"You shouldn't be here," Kaelen breathed, his chest heaving as he took a slow step toward me. He tilted his head, his nostrils flaring slightly as he drew in a deep, deliberate breath of the air between us.

​The moment he inhaled my scent, his entire body went dead still.

​The golden light in his eyes flared brighter, burning through the shadows. The terrifying, metallic tension in the room suddenly shifted, turning thick, dense, and suffocatingly intimate.

​"Who sent you?" Kaelen's voice dropped an octave, no longer just angry, but dangerously, intensely focused. He bridged the gap between us in a single soundless stride, his shadow swallowing me completely. "And why do you smell like my blood?"