DANIEL
The elevator doors closed on Ava’s retreating figure, swallowing her into the descending steel box. I stood frozen in the lobby of The Shard for a long moment, the taste of her still lingering on my lips from that fierce kiss back at the apartment.
My chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped steel wire around my ribs. Through the towering glass walls, London stretched out under a stubborn gray sky..double-decker buses crawling like red beetles far below, a lone cyclist weaving dangerously between taxis, the faint wail of a siren somewhere near the river.
I wanted to charge straight back upstairs. Find Viktor Lang in that lounge, drag him by his expensive lapels, and put my fist through that calculated smile. The impulse burned hot and satisfying in my veins. But sense kicked i
