The screen goes black, but the image of Elena’s bruised face is burned into my retinas. The threat is clear: Come alone or she bleeds.
Stavros is already moving, checking weapons, barking orders into a hardline phone to mobilize a strike team. He wants to tear the city apart brick by brick to find her. He wants war.
But war is loud. War is messy. And war is exactly what the traitor wants to distract us with while he opens the back door.
"Stavros," I say, my voice steady despite the terror clawing at my throat. "You handle the rescue. I handle the house."
"Alina, you are staying in the panic room," he growls, racking the slide of his rifle.
"No," I say. "The ribbon on my pillow wasn't put there by a ghost, Stavros. It was put there by someone with a keycard. Someone who eats at our tab
