NO WAY OUT BUT THROUGH

The Confession

Slade’s hand moved to his belt.

Not for a weapon—his Glock was still holstered. But his fingers rested on the grip. A reflex. A warning.

“Put the phone down,” he said.

Ember didn’t move. She held the second phone in her palm like an offering. It was a cheap burner—the kind you bought at a convenience store with cash. No case. No stickers. Just gray plastic and a cracked screen.

“I’m not going to call anyone,” she said. “I just wanted you to see it.”

Kane stepped closer. His prosthetic leg made a soft clicking sound on the floor. “You have five seconds to explain before I break that phone and your fingers.”

Ember looked at him. Then at Slade. “My name is Ember Voss. That part is true. I am a forensic psychologist. That part is also true. But I didn’t end up in that warehouse by accident.”

Slade said nothing. He waited.

“I was hired,” Ember continued. “Six months ago. A man contacted me through a secure channel. He said he was building a profile on someone. He wanted my expertise.”

“What kind of profile?”

“Psychological. Behavioral patterns. Weaknesses. Triggers.” Ember’s eyes met Slade’s. “He wanted me to profile you.”

The room went cold.

Kane’s hand dropped to his own weapon. “Who hired you?”

“I don’t know his real name. He called himself The Curator. He paid in cryptocurrency. Fifty thousand dollars for the initial work. Another fifty when I delivered the final assessment.”

Slade pulled out a chair and sat down. His voice was calm, but his jaw was tight. “What did you tell him?”

“Everything I could learn from public records, news articles, and a few off-the-record conversations with people who knew you. Your time in Army intelligence. Your work with Glass Table. The mission in the Caucasus. Mira’s death.” Ember swallowed. “I told him you were a man driven by guilt. That you would sacrifice yourself for anyone who reminded you of her. That you had a breaking point—but he would have to push very hard to find it.”

“And that’s why he used you as bait,” Slade said. “Because he knew I would come.”

“I didn’t know about the warehouse. I swear. The last message I got from The Curator was two months ago. He said the project was closed. I thought it was over.” Ember held up the burner phone. “Then I found this in my coat pocket when I woke up in that chair. Someone put it there while I was unconscious. There was one text message already on it.”

She unlocked the phone and handed it to Slade.

The message read: *When he saves you, show him the phone. Tell him everything. Your life depends on it.*

Slade read it twice. Then he looked at Ember. “Why should I trust anything you say now?”

“Because I’m still alive. If I was working for him, you’d already be dead. He doesn’t need me anymore. But he let me go. That means he wants me here. With you.”

“To do what?”

“To watch. To report. Or maybe just to complicate your life.” Ember’s voice cracked. “I don’t know, Slade. I’m as trapped in this as you are.”

Kane shook his head. “She’s lying. She’s a plant. We should dump her at the nearest police station and disappear.”

“He’ll release the file,” Slade said.

“Then we deal with the file. Better that than keeping a snake in our pocket.”

Ember stood up. Her legs were still unsteady, but her voice was firm. “I’m not a snake. I’m a psychologist who made a bad decision. I took money to study a man I’d never met. I didn’t know it would lead to this.”

“Ignorance isn’t innocence,” Kane said.

“No. But it’s not guilt either.”

Slade raised a hand. Both of them fell silent.

He sat in thought for a long moment. The morning light was starting to filter through the grimy windows of the safe house. Somewhere outside, a garbage truck rumbled down the street. Normal life. The kind of life Slade had told himself he wanted.

“You’re going to stay,” he said finally. “For now. You’ll help us figure out who The Minotaur is. You’ll use your training to analyze his messages, his patterns, his weaknesses. In exchange, I keep you alive.”

Ember nodded slowly. “And when this is over?”

“There is no ‘over.’ Not until I say so.” Slade stood up. “Kane, search her. Every pocket. Every seam. If she has another phone or a tracker, find it.”

Kane stepped forward. Ember raised her arms without being asked. He patted her down professionally—ankles, waist, sleeves, collar. Nothing else.

“Clean,” Kane said.

“Almost clean,” Slade said. He took the burner phone and dropped it on the floor. Then he crushed it under his boot. Plastic cracked. The screen shattered.

“Now you’re clean,” he said. “Get some sleep. We have forty-eight hours until the next target.”

---

Ember slept on the bed. Kane took the couch. Slade sat in a chair by the window, watching the street below.

He didn’t sleep. He never slept after a job.

His mind kept circling back to Ember’s words. *The Curator.* Another name. Another player. The Minotaur. The Curator. The Labyrinth Society. How deep did this go?

He pulled out his phone and reread the message about Victor Rios. *You passed the first circle.* Circle. Not level. Not stage. Circle.

That meant there were more. Possibly twelve. The Minotaur’s labyrinth had twelve circles in the old myth. Slade had read the story as a child. A maze. A monster. A hero who killed the beast and escaped.

But in this version, Slade wasn’t sure he was the hero.

He opened a search engine on his phone—a secure one, routed through three VPNs—and typed: *Labyrinth Society.*

No results. Not even a conspiracy forum. Nothing.

He tried: *The Minotaur game.*

A single result appeared. A news article from four years ago. Small paper in Nevada. The headline read: *Local Man Claims He Was Forced to “Play Game” by Anonymous Tormentor.*

Slade opened the article.

The man’s name was David Chen. He was a computer programmer from Reno. According to the article, he had received a series of anonymous messages demanding he perform illegal acts. When he refused, his personal information was leaked online. His wife left him. He lost his job. He eventually committed suicide.

Police called it a case of cyber-stalking. No arrests were made.

But the article mentioned something else. David Chen had a daughter. A child prodigy. Name redacted for privacy.

Slade’s mind flashed to Lyric Chen. The hacker Dante had mentioned. The one who lived in a church basement. The one who had a price.

Same last name. Same city.

He saved the article and closed the browser.

Then he heard a sound from the bedroom. A soft whimper. He stood up and walked to the door.

Ember was thrashing in her sleep. Her face twisted. Her hands clawed at the sheets. A nightmare.

Slade watched for a moment. Then he stepped back and closed the door. He didn’t wake her. Nightmares were private things. He knew that better than anyone.

---

Six hours later, Slade received a new message.

He was eating a stale bagel at the kitchen counter. Kane was cleaning his rifle at the table. Ember was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, staring at nothing.

The buzz made all three of them flinch.

**Unknown:** The second circle begins now. Your next target is a woman named Sloane Vance. She is a corporate assassin. She has killed seventeen people in the last five years. Her current contract is a politician named Arthur Delgado. She will kill him in three days at a fundraiser. You must stop her.

**Unknown:** But you cannot kill her. You must capture her alive and deliver her to the address I will send. If she dies, the file goes public. If Delgado dies, the file goes public. If you fail to capture her within seventy-two hours, the file goes public.

**Unknown:** She is armed. She is trained. She has no weaknesses except one. Find it.

**Unknown:** Tick tock.

Slade read the message aloud. When he finished, Ember spoke.

“Sloane Vance. I’ve heard that name. She was mentioned in a few FBI files I reviewed. Ghost. No digital footprint. No known associates.”

“Everyone has a weakness,” Slade said. “Even ghosts.”

Kane set down his rifle. “How do we find her?”

“We don’t. We find Arthur Delgado first. She has to get close to him to make the kill. We intercept her there.”

“That means going to a public event,” Kane said. “Crowds. Security. Cameras. Too many variables.”

“Then we control the variables.” Slade pulled up a map of the city on his laptop. “The fundraiser is at the Grand Verance Hotel. Ballroom on the third floor. Delgado will be on stage at 8:00 PM. Sloane will need to be in the room by 7:30 at the latest.”

Ember stood up. “I can help. I’ve profiled assassins before. They follow patterns. She’ll case the location ahead of time. Probably today or tomorrow.”

“Then we case her,” Slade said. “Kane, you take the hotel. Look for anyone who doesn’t belong. Ember, you’re with me. We’ll hit the surveillance feeds from Dante’s place.”

“What about the safe house?” Kane asked.

“We’re done with it. The Minotaur probably already knows where it is. We move every twelve hours until the job is done.”

Kane nodded. He began packing his gear.

Slade looked at Ember. “You ready to work?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“None of us do.”

---

Dante was awake when they arrived. He was wearing the same silk robe, drinking the same whiskey. His eyes tracked Ember as she walked through the door.

“You brought a guest,” he said. “A pretty one.”

“She’s off limits,” Slade said.

“Everyone is off limits to you. That’s your problem.” Dante turned to his screens. “What do you need?”

“Surveillance feeds from the Grand Verance Hotel. All of them. Street level, lobby, ballroom, service elevators. Going back twenty-four hours.”

Dante’s fingers danced across the keyboard. “That’s a lot of footage. What am I looking for?”

“A woman. Late twenties to early thirties. Athletic. Likely carrying a weapon. She’ll be scouting the location.”

“I’ll set up facial recognition. But if she’s a pro, she’ll avoid cameras.”

“Then we look for gaps. Places where cameras are blind. That’s where she’ll be.”

Dante nodded. “This will take a few hours. You want coffee?”

“Yes.”

While Dante worked, Slade stood by the window. The city spread out below him. Thousands of lives. Thousands of secrets. Somewhere down there, a killer was planning her next move.

Ember sat on a couch, hugging her knees. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Following his orders. You could have run. You could have fought back. Instead, you’re playing his game.”

“Because the game is the only way to find him.”

“And when you find him?”

Slade turned. “Then I’ll ask him why he chose me. And then I’ll make sure he never chooses anyone again.”

Ember studied his face. “You’re not afraid of him.”

“Fear is a tool. He uses it. So do I.”

Dante called out. “I found something. Third floor service corridor. Camera went offline for twelve minutes yesterday at 3:00 PM. That’s not a glitch. Someone disabled it.”

Slade walked to the screen. “Show me the footage from before it went down.”

Dante rewound. A dark hallway. Empty. Then, at 2:58 PM, a figure walked past the camera. A woman. Dark hair. Dark clothes. Her face was angled down, but Slade could see the outline of her jaw. The set of her shoulders.

“Can you enhance the face?”

“Not enough resolution. But I can cross-reference with known associates of Delgado.” Dante ran a search. A moment later, a photo appeared. “Sloane Vance. No criminal record. No social media. But I found a DMV photo from five years ago.”

The photo showed a woman with sharp features, cold eyes, and a small scar on her upper lip. The same woman from the service corridor.

“That’s her,” Slade said. “Now we need her pattern.”

Dante pulled up a map of the hotel. “If she’s professional, she’ll have an escape route planned. Stairs. Service elevator. Rooftop access.” He highlighted three exits. “She’ll hit Delgado during his speech, when everyone is watching the stage. Then she’ll disappear in the chaos.”

“Then we don’t let her get to the stage,” Slade said. “We take her before she makes the attempt.”

“Where?”

“The service corridor. It’s isolated. No cameras. No witnesses.” Slade looked at Ember. “We need a distraction. Something that draws her out of position.”

Ember thought for a moment. “She’ll have a spotter. Someone watching her back. If we take out the spotter, she’ll panic. She’ll fall back to her secondary exit.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what the profile says. Assassins like control. When control breaks, they retreat to their safest option.”

Slade nodded. “Kane takes the spotter. I take Sloane. Ember, you stay with Dante. Monitor the feeds. Tell us if anything changes.”

“I can do more than that,” Ember said.

“Not yet.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. She nodded.

Dante looked up from his screens. “There’s something else. I ran a deeper search on the name The Minotaur. I found a forum. Dark web. Members only. They call themselves ‘The Labyrinth.’ They talk about games. Players. Circles.”

“Can you get in?”

“I can try. But if I get caught, they’ll lock me out permanently. Or worse.”

“Do it.”

Dante hesitated. Then he typed.

The screen filled with black text on a gray background. A login page. A single prompt: *Enter your circle.*

Dante typed: *One.*

Access denied.

*Two.*

Access denied.

*Three.*

Access granted.

The forum opened. Posts. Hundreds of them. Each one titled with a name. A date. A status.

*Victor Rios – Circle One – Complete.*

*Sloane Vance – Circle Two – In Progress.*

Slade’s blood went cold.

There were other names. Dozens of them. Some with green checkmarks. Some with red X’s. And at the top of the page, a pinned post:

*Welcome, players. The labyrinth does not forgive. The labyrinth does not forget. No way out but through.*

Beneath the post, a list of current games. Slade saw his own name.

*Subject: Slade Crowe. Status: Active. Current Circle: 2. Predicted Survival: 12%*

Twelve percent.

Dante looked at Slade. “They’re betting on you. People are placing wagers on whether you live or die.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know. But they’re rich. The buy-in for this game is one million dollars.”

Slade stared at the screen. His own name. His own life. Turned into entertainment for the wealthy.

“Find them,” he said. “Find every name on that list. I want to know who’s watching me die.”

Dante nodded. “That will take time.”

“Then take it.”

Slade turned away from the screen. His phone buzzed again.

**Unknown:** You found the forum. Good. Now you understand. You are not the first. You will not be the last. But you are the most entertaining.

**Unknown:** One more thing. The woman you saved? Ember? She’s not the only one with secrets. Ask Kane about the Caucasus. Ask him what he really saw.

**Unknown:** Tick tock.

Slade looked at Kane, who was cleaning his rifle at the table.

Kane looked back. “What?”

Slade didn’t answer. He just slipped the phone into his pocket and walked to the door.

“We move in two hours,” he said. “Get ready.”

But in his mind, the words echoed.

*Ask Kane about the Caucasus.*

The man he trusted most in the world.

And Slade realized: he had no idea if Kane would tell him the truth.