UNBREAKABLE

Crosshairs

Chapter 2

The rain had not stopped all night. By morning, the city steamed like a feverish animal, puddles reflecting neon and sky. Ava Reyes walked with purpose through the underground parking level of her office building, her heels leaving faint crescents of water on the concrete. Her phone buzzed against her palm—another unknown number, another veiled threat. She deleted it without opening it.

Aboveground, the newsfeeds were running wild. Someone had leaked her cross-examination from the previous day; bloggers were already calling her “The Fortress.” She almost laughed. Fortress or not, she felt like a moving target.

She swiped her access card and stepped into the elevator. Before the doors closed, a hand stopped them. Marco Santillán slipped in, tie loosened, eyes dark from lack of sleep.

“You’re persistent,” she said.

“You’re alive,” he replied.

The elevator began to climb. He handed her a thin envelope. “Your client’s company. You’ll want to see these.”

Ava opened it. Inside were bank statements with the same looping shell transfers she’d uncovered—but here they were annotated, dates circled, initials in margins. “How did you get this?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Then why give it to me?”

“Because you don’t know who’s circling you yet.”

The elevator chimed. She stepped out. “Don’t follow me.”

He followed.

She spun. “I said—”

Marco held up his phone. On the screen: a grainy security feed showing two men entering her office fifteen minutes earlier. They wore coveralls, carried tool bags, and moved with the wrong kind of precision.

“I swept your office last night,” Marco said. “Found a tracker in your desk phone. Thought you should know.”

She stared at the feed, a cold pulse at the base of her skull. “Who are you working for?”

“Myself,” he said. “And maybe for you, if you’re smart.”

“I don’t hire shadows.”

“Then consider me a mirror. You’re looking at what your case has become.”

She took a long breath. “Fine. Show me.”

They entered a café across the street, its windows fogged from espresso steam. Marco sat with his back to the wall, eyes scanning exits. He spread a city map on the table. Red dots marked warehouses, office towers, charities.

“This is Valderrama’s footprint,” he said. “Looks like philanthropy. Moves like smuggling.”

She traced a line between two dots. “This matches the offshore trust I found.”

He nodded. “And this”—he tapped a dot shaped like a triangle—“is where the money becomes guns.”

Ava closed her eyes briefly. “How do you know?”

“Because I’ve been inside.”

“You’re undercover?”

“Was.”

She leaned back. “Why blow your cover now?”

“Because I like breathing. And because you’re forcing his hand faster than planned.”

Outside, a black sedan idled too long at the curb. Marco’s eyes flicked toward it. “We should move.”

Ava gathered the papers. “I’m not running.”

“You’re not running,” he agreed. “We’re repositioning.”

They slipped out the side door just as two men entered the café. Ava felt the familiar thrill of being hunted—but she was not the prey she once had been.

That night, in her apartment, she took the pistol from its case, disassembled and cleaned it with the care of a ritual. Her reflection in the darkened window looked like a stranger. She thought of Marco’s steady voice, his map, the shadow of trust forming where she had sworn none would grow.

Her phone buzzed: “More tomorrow. Bring no one.”

She almost smiled. Dangerous men didn’t realize she was more dangerous still.