“She blamed Mirelle,” Rurik babbled, crawling backward in the mud. “She said Mirelle ruined her destiny. She said she didn’t want Mirelle dead… she wanted her to suffer. To know what it felt like to vanish, to be entirely forgotten by the world!”
“Secure him,” I told Vance, my voice eerily calm now that the enemy had a face.
I walked toward the burning lodge. The front door was open, the flames haven’t fully consumed the entryway. Against Vance’s frantic shouting, I stepped inside the smoky foyer. On a small, soot-covered writing desk near the entrance, I saw a leather-bound notebook. I grabbed it just as a burning beam crashed down behind me, and I threw myself back out into the freezing mud.
Back in the safety of the SUV, I wiped the soot from the cover and opened it. It was Mirelle’s handwriting, though frantic and trembling. It was a makeshift journal she had managed to keep.
Day 4, the last entry read. I am trapped in a place that echoes with every sound, yet no one hears me. Ysella visits only to taunt me. She says the world has moved on. She says you buried an empty box and cried, and that you will forget me. She lies, Jack. I know you won’t. But sometimes, when the construction drills stop, I fear the silence of this concrete tomb will swallow me whole. I am high above the world, but buried alive.
“High above the world,” I muttered, my mind racing. “Construction drills. A concrete tomb.”
Elliot leaned over the seat. “Boss, there’s a massive urban renewal project downtown. Dozens of high-rises slated for demolition or mid-construction. It’s a ghost town of concrete and scaffolding.”
My phone vibrated violently in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was an encrypted message from one of my contacts at the local news networks.
Jack. A custodian at the Horizon Tower site just called our tipline. Found a napkin in a construction dumpster with a message written in lipstick. “Mirelle Halberg. Fourteenth floor.” Police are ignoring it as a prank. Thought you should know.
“Horizon Tower,” I commanded the driver, my grip on the journal tightening until my knuckles turned white. “Step on it.”
As the SUV tore back toward the city, I looked down at the pistol in my hand. Ysella wasn’t just holding my wife hostage; she was trying to execute a psychological murder.
But she had vastly underestimated the monster she had awakened in me.
Chapter 4: Ascent into Madness
The Horizon Tower was a skeletal monstrosity of exposed steel girders, poured concrete, and flapping plastic tarps, looming over the central district like a decaying monument. The city had halted construction months ago due to zoning disputes, leaving it a desolate, wind-howling shell.
Sirens wailed in the distance, a haunting symphony of Saint Aurelia’s corrupt underbelly, but down here at the base of the tower, it was just the heavy, rhythmic drumming of rain against concrete.
My tactical team fanned out, their flashlights cutting through the gloom. Tala, who had stubbornly refused to stay behind at the safehouse, tugged at my coat. “I want to go up,” she demanded, her jaw set. “I was the first to see her. I want to see her safe.”
“You stay in the truck with Elliot,” I told her, my tone leaving no room for argument. “When I bring her down, you’ll be the first face she sees.”
I chambered a round and stepped into the pitch-black stairwell.
The ascent was a nightmare. Fourteen floors of darkness, broken only by the sporadic beams of our tactical lights. With every flight, the wind grew fiercer, whistling through the empty elevator shafts like tortured spirits. My legs burned, my lungs ached, but the image of Mirelle in that desolate room drove me upward relentlessly.
As we reached the thirteenth-floor landing, Vance held up a fist. We froze.
From above, the faint, manic sound of a woman’s voice echoed down the concrete stairwell.
“—think he’s coming for you? He’s probably drinking himself to death in his penthouse, mourning his beautiful, tragic wife!”
It was Ysella. The hatred in her voice was palpable, dripping like venom.
I bypassed Vance, taking the final flight of stairs two at a time, abandoning stealth for speed. I kicked the fire door open. It slammed against the concrete wall with a thunderous crack.
The fourteenth floor was entirely open to the elements, lacking walls or windows. The wind whipped rain across the vast expanse. At the far edge, near a sheer drop into the abyss of the city, was a single metal chair.
Mirelle was tied to it. Her beautiful face was bruised, her clothes ragged, but as she lifted her head and saw me, a defiant, blazing light ignited in her eyes.
“Jack,” she breathed, a sound that cut through the storm.
“Stop right there!” Ysella shrieked, stepping out from behind a concrete pillar. She looked feral. Her clothes were disheveled, her eyes sunken and wild. In her hand, she held a heavy industrial detonator, its wires snaking across the wet floor toward a bundle of explosives strapped to the base of Mirelle’s chair.
My men immediately leveled their rifles at her, laser sights painting her chest with red dots.
“Back off!” Ysella screamed, her thumb hovering over the trigger. “If you come one step closer, I will end this right now! I’ll blow us all off the edge of this godforsaken building!”
“Don’t do it, Ysella,” I said, my voice echoing with a calm I didn’t feel. I lowered my weapon, holding my hands up slowly. “It’s over. Rurik is in custody. The police know. You have nowhere to go.”
“I don’t need to go anywhere!” she spat, pacing erratically near the ledge. “She ruined my life! She had everything—the money, the reputation, you! While I drowned in debt and disgrace, she thrived. It isn’t fair. She deserved to vanish!”
“I did what was right, Ysella,” Mirelle said, her voice surprisingly steady despite her restraints. “You stole from people who trusted us. You destroyed yourself.”
“Shut up!” Ysella roared, raising the detonator.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I needed a distraction, just a fraction of a second. I locked eyes with Vance, giving him an imperceptible nod.
“Ysella, listen to me,” I shouted, taking a slow, deliberate step forward to draw her manic focus entirely onto me. “You want me to suffer? You want to destroy my empire? Kill me. Let her go, and you can throw me off this ledge.”
Ysella laughed, a broken, hysterical sound. “Oh, how romantic. The great Jack Halberg, offering his life for a woman who—”
CRASH.
From the floor above, two of my operatives who had scaled the exterior scaffolding swung down through the open ceiling framework. Glass from a skylight shattered inward, raining down in a glittering cascade.
Ysella flinched, looking up for a microsecond.
It was all Vance needed. He fired a single, silenced shot. The bullet struck Ysella in the shoulder, spinning her backward. The detonator slipped from her grasp, clattering harmlessly across the wet concrete.
I sprinted forward, diving across the floor, and intercepted the detonator before she could scramble for it. I kicked it over the edge into the darkness.
