CHAPTER ONE The Last Floor

At 11:47 p.m., Elena Hayes was arguing with a vending machine that had swallowed her last two dollars.

"Listen, you overpriced metal box, I have worked eight hours cleaning up after people who earn more in a minute than I earn in a month. I have scrubbed coffee stains off desks that cost more than my entire apartment, and I have personally removed chewing gum from beneath the chair of a man who apparently believes furniture maintenance is beneath his salary. The least you can do is give me my chocolate."

The vending machine blinked at her.

Elena kicked it lightly.

Her chocolate dropped.

She stared at it.

"See? We can settle things peacefully when you decide to respect women."

She picked up the chocolate bar and tucked it into her cleaning cart.

Eleven forty-eight.

Forty-two minutes until she could clock out, catch the last bus, and return to her tiny apartment, where the shower produced either boiling water or a personal relationship with hypothermia.

She appreciated her job. Love was a strong word for pushing a mop around offices occupied by people who left their lunch containers on desks and expected invisible hands to deal with them.

Tonight, however, she was working on the forty-second floor of Blackwood Tower, and the executive offices were unusually quiet.

Most employees had gone home hours ago. Only a few lights remained on behind the glass walls, illuminating expensive desks, polished floors, and paintings that looked like someone had spilled paint during a disagreement and convinced a billionaire to purchase the evidence.

Elena pushed her cart toward the executive corridor.

She had been assigned to the upper floors three weeks ago after another cleaner went on maternity leave. The promotion came with a small increase in pay, a larger area to clean, and access to bathrooms so luxurious that Elena sometimes wondered whether the toilets had better healthcare than she did.

The forty-second floor belonged to Alexander Blackwood.

Everyone knew his name.

At thirty-two, he was the billionaire founder and chief executive of Blackwood International, a company with investments in commercial real estate, technology, and enough other industries to make Elena suspicious that the man simply bought whatever caught his attention.

His face appeared in business magazines and newspaper headlines. He was also rumored to be difficult to work with.

One employee had claimed that Alexander once made an entire management team redo a presentation because a financial projection was off by two percent.

Elena had privately decided that any man who could afford a private chef but still found time to terrorize PowerPoint slides probably needed a hobby.

She had never met him.

She preferred it that way.

Her job was to clean his office, not become another employee with a story about his terrifying eyebrows.

She began with the conference room, wiping the long glass table and arranging the abandoned chairs. A half-empty bottle of water stood beside a stack of documents. Someone had left a pen uncapped, staining a sheet of paper.

Elena cleaned the mess and moved into the adjoining corridor.

That was when she heard the elevator.

The doors opened at the end of the hallway.

Alexander Blackwood stepped out.

Elena recognized him immediately from the photographs she'd seen online, although the real man was considerably taller than he appeared on a phone screen.

He wore a charcoal suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie that had been loosened slightly. His black hair was neatly styled, and his expression suggested that the entire building had personally disappointed him.

A man in a navy suit followed him, carrying a leather folder.

"Have the revised figures been sent to the board?" Alexander asked.

"Yes, sir. They'll receive the complete report before the morning meeting."

"And the security footage?"

"I'm arranging access."

Alexander stopped walking.

"I didn't ask you to arrange access, Daniel. I asked you to retrieve it."

Daniel straightened. "I'll handle it personally."

"Do that."

They continued toward the executive office.

Elena moved her cleaning cart against the wall to give them room.

Alexander's gaze passed over her uniform and cleaning supplies. He gave a brief nod before entering his office.

Daniel followed him inside.

The door closed.

Elena returned to her work.

She had precisely zero interest in corporate conversations, particularly those involving security footage. Her own financial records were complicated enough.

She finished wiping the corridor and headed toward the service elevator to collect fresh supplies.

On her way back, she passed Alexander's office again.

The door was slightly open.

Inside, Daniel stood near the desk, speaking in a low voice.

"Everything is ready for tonight," he said.

Alexander sat behind his desk, reviewing a document.

"Tonight?"

"The inspection at the west entrance. The arrangements have been made."

Alexander looked up.

"I moved that inspection to Friday."

Daniel hesitated.

"It was moved back to tonight, sir. Your calendar was updated this afternoon."

"By whom?"

"Your office."

Alexander set down his pen.

"Find out who changed it."

Daniel nodded and left.

Elena kept walking.

She had no idea what the conversation meant, and she wasn't paid enough to develop an interest in the billionaire's calendar.

Still, something about Daniel's expression had bothered her. He had looked less like an assistant delivering an update and more like a man who had just realized he had said something he shouldn't have.

Elena dismissed the thought.

People had awkward conversations at work. It happened.

She had once watched her supervisor explain to a client that the missing gold watch hadn't been thrown away with the rubbish, only to discover it sitting in the supervisor's own handbag.

Compared with that, a scheduling disagreement was practically a love story.

By 11:56 p.m., Elena had finished the main corridor and returned her supplies to the service area.

She was checking the inventory when a sharp metallic crash echoed from somewhere above her.

She froze.

Another sound followed.

A heavy impact.

Then silence.

Elena looked toward the elevators.

The noise had come from the restricted mechanical level above the executive floors.

Perhaps maintenance was working late.

She picked up her cleaning cart, intending to finish the last section of the corridor before clocking out.

Then the fire alarm sounded.

Red lights flashed along the ceiling.

A recorded voice instructed everyone to leave the building through the designated emergency exits.

Elena abandoned her cart and hurried toward the stairwell.

She had reached the door when she noticed movement through the glass partition across the corridor.

Alexander Blackwood stood near the service passage leading to the mechanical level.

He was alone, his phone pressed to his ear, his expression hard with irritation.

"I'm standing exactly where your message instructed me to stand," he said. "You have thirty seconds to explain why my building's alarm system is malfunctioning."

He listened.

His face changed.

Not fear.

Recognition.

As if someone on the other end had just confirmed something he had suspected.

He lowered the phone.

A second later, a violent crash came from the mechanical level.

Part of the overhead structure above the service passage buckled.

Alexander looked up.

Elena didn't think.

She ran.

"Move!"

He turned toward her just as she reached him.

She caught his arm and pulled him backward with everything she had.

They stumbled across the floor together.

A section of metal framework slammed down where he had been standing a heartbeat earlier. Glass shattered against the wall, and dust filled the corridor.

Elena hit the floor on one knee.

Alexander landed beside her.

For several seconds, neither moved.

The alarm continued to scream overhead.

Elena blinked through the dust, trying to understand what had happened.

Then she looked at the fallen structure.

It wasn't supposed to be there.

And she had a terrible feeling that someone had made sure Alexander Blackwood would be standing beneath it.