NO WAY OUT BUT THROUGH

The First Elimination

The SUV tore through the backstreets of Verance.

Slade drove with one hand, the other braced against the wheel. His eyes bounced between the road and the rearview mirror. No headlights behind them yet. But the night was too quiet.

Ember sat in the passenger seat, shaking. Her wrists were raw from the zip ties. A bruise was forming on her cheek. She kept looking back, then at Slade, then back again.

Kane was in the back, rifle across his knees, scanning the dark windows of empty warehouses.

“Who were they?” Ember asked. Her voice was hoarse.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” Slade said.

“I don’t know. I was leaving my office last night. Someone put a bag over my head. When I woke up, I was in that chair.” She touched her cheek. “They didn’t ask me anything. They just left me there.”

“They weren’t after information,” Kane said. “You were bait.”

“For who?”

Slade glanced at her. “For me.”

The SUV hit a pothole. Ember winced. “I’ve never met you before tonight. Why would someone use me to get to you?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.”

Slade’s phone buzzed. He ignored it. It buzzed again. Then a third time.

“You should check that,” Kane said.

Slade pulled over under a broken streetlight. The phone screen glowed.

**Unknown:** You ran. Smart. But you can't hide. Sunrise is in three hours. The first elimination is a man named Victor Rios. He owns a nightclub called The Black Door on Twelfth Street. By 7:00 AM, he must be eliminated.

**Unknown:** You don't have to kill him. Ruin him. Expose his secret. Break his legs. I don't care how. But if he's still standing when the sun is up, the file on Mira goes to every news outlet in the country.

**Unknown:** Tick tock.

Slade read the messages aloud.

Ember leaned over to look. “Victor Rios? I know that name. He’s been investigated for human trafficking. Twice. Both cases were dropped.”

“Dropped how?” Kane asked.

“Witnesses disappeared. Judges got rich. The usual.” Ember looked at Slade. “If this Minotaur wants him destroyed, maybe he’s doing some kind of vigilante justice.”

“Or he’s setting me up to commit a crime,” Slade said. “Victor Rios has connections. If I touch him, every cop in the city will be looking for me.”

Kane tapped his prosthetic leg. “Then we don’t touch him. We find another way.”

“Like what?”

“Rios has enemies. We find one, feed them information, let them do the dirty work.”

Slade thought about it. The Minotaur wanted him to act. But the message didn’t say Slade had to pull the trigger personally. It said *eliminated*. That left room.

“We need more information,” Slade said. “Kane, take Ember to the safe house on Miller Street. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see a man who knows everything about everyone in this city.”

---

Dante Marchetti lived in a parking garage.

Not in it—above it. The top floor of a six-story structure near the waterfront had been converted into a hidden apartment. No elevator went that high. The stairs were blocked by a steel door with a biometric lock.

Slade had the code.

He climbed the last flight in darkness, his boots echoing off concrete. The door clicked open. Inside, the space was warm and cluttered. Screens covered every wall. Live feeds from traffic cameras, security systems, and news stations flickered in the dim light.

Dante sat in the center of it all, barefoot, wearing a silk robe. A glass of whiskey rested on the arm of his chair. His black hair was slicked back, his sharp face illuminated by the glow of a dozen monitors.

“Slade Crowe,” Dante said without turning around. “Three in the morning. You only come here when someone is trying to kill you.”

“Or when I need information.”

Dante swiveled his chair. His dark eyes scanned Slade’s face. “You look terrible. What happened?”

Slade sat down across from him. “Someone is running me through a maze. They call themselves The Minotaur. They have a file that can put me in prison for life.”

“A real file or a fake one?”

“Fake. But perfect.”

Dante raised an eyebrow. “Perfect forgeries don’t exist. Not anymore. The technology left the black market two years ago.”

“Apparently it’s back.”

Dante turned to his keyboards. His fingers flew across the keys. Screens changed. Data scrolled. “Give me a name. Anyone connected to this.”

“Victor Rios.”

Dante paused. “The nightclub owner?”

“You know him?”

“I know everyone who moves money in this city. Rios moves a lot. Mostly dirty.” Dante pulled up a file. Photos, bank statements, criminal records. “He’s been linked to the Castellan crime family. They use his club to launder drug money. But Rios has a side business that’s even worse.”

“Human trafficking,” Slade said.

“That’s the public rumor. The private truth is worse. He doesn’t traffic people. He traffics *information*. Girls who work in his club are wired. Microphones in their jewelry. Cameras in the VIP rooms. He records everything. Then he sells the recordings to blackmail his clients.”

Slade leaned forward. “So his real power isn’t muscle. It’s secrets.”

“Exactly. Rios is a coward. He hides behind his recordings.” Dante pulled up a map. “His club is on Twelfth Street. Basement level is where he keeps the servers. Concrete walls. Soundproof. Three guards on rotation.”

“I don’t need to hurt him. I just need to ruin him.”

Dante smiled. It was a cold smile. “Then you don’t touch Rios. You touch his servers. You take his recordings and release them to the public. Every politician, every cop, every businessman who ever visited that club went down with him. Rios won’t survive the fallout.”

Slade studied the map. “The servers are in the basement. How do I get in without setting off alarms?”

“You don’t. You set off the alarms on purpose. Let the guards chase you. While they’re busy, someone else grabs the data.” Dante looked at him. “You have someone you trust?”

“Kane.”

“Send Kane to the roof. He creates a distraction. You go to the basement. Thirty seconds to copy the drives. Then you both disappear.”

Slade stood up. “Send me the schematics.”

“Already done.” Dante raised his glass. “One more thing, Slade. The Minotaur. Be careful. I’ve heard whispers about that name.”

“What kind of whispers?”

“The kind that ends with people disappearing,” Dante’s smile faded. “Whoever they are, they’ve been playing this game for years. You’re not the first.”

Slade stopped at the door. “Who was the first?”

“I don’t know. No one does. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”

---

The Black Door sat on a corner of Twelfth Street, sandwiched between a pawn shop and a boarded-up theater. Red neon lights flickered above the entrance. Two bouncers stood outside, both built like refrigerators, both wearing earpieces.

Slade watched from across the street, hidden in the doorway of a closed bakery. It was 4:30 AM. The club would close in an hour. That was his window.

Kane’s voice came through the earpiece. “I’m on the roof. I see three guards inside. Two at the bar. One near the basement stairs.”

“Any civilians?”

“Maybe a dozen. Drunks. They won’t be a problem.”

Slade checked his watch. “Give me sixty seconds to get to the basement door. Then make noise.”

“Copy.”

Slade crossed the street. He walked with confidence, head down, hands in his pockets. The bouncers didn’t look at him twice. He looked like any other customer trying to get in before last call.

The first bouncer held up a hand. “We’re closed.”

Slade looked up. “I’m not here to drink. I’m here to see Victor.”

“Victor doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.”

“Tell him Slade Crowe is here. He’ll want to talk.”

The bouncer frowned. He spoke into his sleeve. A moment later, his eyes widened. “He says go to the back. Private room.”

Slade nodded and walked inside.

The club was dark, throbbing with the last remnants of a dying beat. A few couples swayed on the dance floor. Bartenders were wiping down counters. No one paid attention to the tall man walking toward the back hallway.

The basement stairs were behind a velvet curtain. A third bouncer stood there, arms crossed.

“Private,” the bouncer said.

“Victor invited me.”

The bouncer hesitated. Then he stepped aside.

Slade descended the stairs. The music faded. The air grew cold. At the bottom, a long hallway led to a steel door. He could hear voices behind it. Laughter. The clink of glasses.

He reached the door.

Kane’s voice: “Now.”

An explosion rocked the building.

Not a real explosion—Kane had thrown a flash bang through a window on the roof. But the sound was loud enough to shake the walls. Alarms blared. Guards shouted. Footsteps pounded upstairs.

Slade kicked the steel door.

It swung open. Inside, Victor Rios sat at a desk, surrounded by server racks. He was a small man, soft, with thinning hair and expensive shoes. Two guards stood behind him.

“What the hell is this?” Rios shouted.

Slade didn’t answer. He moved.

The first guard reached for his gun. Slade grabbed his wrist, twisted, and slammed the man’s head into the server rack. The guard dropped. The second guard swung a fist. Slade ducked, drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, and threw him into the wall.

Rios scrambled for a drawer. Slade was faster. He grabbed the back of Rios’s chair and yanked. The chair tipped over. Rios hit the floor.

Slade put a boot on his chest. “Where are the recordings?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Slade pressed down. “The recordings. The ones you use to blackmail your clients. Where are they?”

Rios’s face turned red. “On the servers. Take them. I don’t care.”

Slade pulled a USB drive from his pocket—a special drive designed to copy data at high speed. He plugged it into the main server. A green light blinked. Twelve seconds to copy.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Rios gasped. “The people I work for will kill you. They’ll kill everyone you know.”

“They’ll have to find me first.”

The USB drive beeped. Copy complete. Slade pulled it out and pocketed it.

“You’re dead,” Rios said. “You hear me? Dead.”

Slade looked down at him. “Maybe. But you’re ruined.”

He turned and ran up the stairs.

The club was chaos. Patrons were screaming, running for the exits. Guards were shouting into radios. Kane had done his job well. Slade pushed through the crowd, kept his head down, and slipped out the back door.

Kane was waiting in an alley, engine running.

“Get in,” Kane said.

Slade jumped into the passenger seat. The SUV peeled away, tires squealing.

“Did you get it?” Kane asked.

Slade held up the USB drive. “Everything. Every secret Rios ever recorded.”

“That’s enough to ruin him.”

“It’s enough to destroy half the city.”

---

The safe house on Miller Street was a small apartment above a laundromat. Bare walls. A single bed. A table with two chairs. Ember sat at the table, a cup of cold coffee in front of her.

She looked up when Slade walked in. “Did you do it?”

Slade plugged the USB drive into a laptop. Files appeared. Hundreds of them. Audio recordings. Video files. Documents. He opened one at random.

A man’s voice: *“The shipment arrives at the port on Tuesday. Make sure the customs inspector is paid.”*

Another file: video of a politician in a hotel room, wearing nothing but a smile.

Another: bank statements showing money moving from a corporation to an offshore account.

“This is a gold mine,” Ember whispered.

“It’s a weapon,” Slade said. “And I’m about to fire it.”

He opened an anonymous email account and attached the most damaging files. Then he sent them to every news outlet in the city. The police department. The FBI. The district attorney’s office.

“By sunrise,” Slade said, “Victor Rios will have nowhere to hide.”

His phone buzzed.

**Unknown:** Well done. Rios is eliminated. You passed the first circle. But the second is already waiting.

**Unknown:** In forty-eight hours, you will receive instructions for your next target. Until then, rest. You’ll need it.

**Unknown:** And Slade? Don’t trust Ember. She’s not who she says she is.

Slade looked at Ember. She was staring at the laptop screen, her face unreadable.

“What?” she asked.

“The Minotaur says, I shouldn’t trust you.”

Ember’s expression didn’t change. “Then he’s smarter than I thought.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a second phone—one Slade hadn’t seen before.

“Because I’ve been lying to you since the moment we met.”