The warehouse reeked of metal and old oil.
Rhoda felt it before she saw anything—the cold, the echo, the way sound didn't settle properly in the space. They dragged her across concrete, her shoes scraping uselessly as the door slammed shut behind them. The light overhead flickered once before stabilizing, harsh and unkind.
They tied her to a chair beneath it.
Not carefully. Not gently.
The rope burned as it bit into her wrists, the chair legs screeching as Miller shoved it back into place. She swallowed the pain, forcing herself upright even as her pulse raced uncontrollably.
"You really went to work, Rhoda? After everything?" He shook his head. "That's the problem with you people. You think normal is a right. It's a luxury."
"I don't know anything," she rasped. One of Miller's goons—a man with dead eyes and a scarred knuckle—stood behind her.
"Wrong answer," Miller said softly.
A backhand caught her across the cheek, sending her chair tilting precariously.
"Where is he?" Miller asked, leaning in. "Where is Mercer?"
"I... I don't know," she sobbed. "He just drops me off... he doesn't tell me..."
"Mercer is a shadow," Miller mused, standing up and walking a slow circle around her. "And shadows don't care about the things they cast. He's going to let you die here, Rhoda. Just to keep his secrets. Is that worth it? For a man who treats you like a decoy?"
He grabbed her hair, forcing her head back to look at him. "Give me a location. Give me a name. And I'll let you walk back to your life." Rhoda looked at him through a haze of tears and agony. She thought of Evan's white knuckles on the steering wheel. She thought of the coffee mug on the counter.
"Go to hell," she whispered.
Miller circled her slowly.
"You know," he said conversationally, "I didn't mind Mercer having a weakness. Everyone does. What I didn't like was him lying about it."
She lifted her chin. "I don't know what you think I know."
One of the men laughed sharply. Another leaned against a crate, arms crossed, watching her with open hostility.
"That's the problem," Miller continued. "What he brought to us out of that vault? Useful, sure. Profitable. But that wasn't all of it."
He stopped in front of her. "I have reason to believe Mercer took classified documents out of that vault."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
He crouched, bringing himself eye-level with her. "Mercer's has always been particular about paper"
She said nothing.
"You were in that vault," he pressed. "You opened it. You walked out calm. Clean." His eyes narrowed. "So either he trusted you with something he didn't trust us with… or you were part of it."
"I wasn't," she said hoarsely.
Miller smiled thinly. "That's not what matters."
He straightened and nodded to one of the men. The blow came fast—sharp enough to rattle her teeth, to pull a cry from her throat before she could stop it.
Pain exploded behind her eyes.
"She doesn't have to be guilty," Miller said coolly. "She just has to be useful."
Another man stepped forward, pulling something metallic from his pocket.
"Stop," she gasped. "Please—"
The warehouse doors burst open.
Gunfire tore through the air.
The first shot dropped the man nearest the door before anyone had time to react. The second shattered the light overhead, plunging half the space into darkness.
"Down!" someone screamed.
Chaos erupted.
Evan moved through it like something unbound.
He didn't hesitate. Didn't warn. Didn't shout her name.
He fired with ruthless economy, every shot purposeful, every movement calculated—but there was nothing precise about the fury driving him now. The crew responded immediately, bullets tearing into crates, sparks flying as gunfire ricocheted wildly.
Rhoda screamed as a round hit the chair leg beside her, splintering wood.
"Mercer!" Miller roared. "You insane bastard—"
Another shot cut him off.
Evan crossed the distance between them under cover of gunfire, sliding behind a steel pillar, returning fire without pause. One of the men went down hard. Another staggered back, clutching his shoulder.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Someone had called it in. Or heard it.
It didn't matter.
Evan reached her in seconds, knife flashing as he cut through the ropes binding her wrists.
"Can you run?" he demanded.
She nodded, barely feeling her hands.
He hauled her up, shielding her body with his as another volley of shots tore through the space they'd just vacated. Miller fired blindly, rage replacing calculation now.
"You chose her," Miller snarled, blood running down his arm. "You chose her over us."
"Yes," Evan said, backing Rhoda toward the rear exit. "And I'd do it again."
They burst through the back door just as red and blue lights washed the warehouse walls in color.
Gunfire continued inside—desperate, panicked now.
Evan didn't look back.
They ran.
Down alleys, over fences, into a waiting car Evan had staged for a contingency he never wanted to admit he'd planned for. He shoved her inside, jumped in after her, and peeled away as the sound of sirens swallowed the night.
By the time the police stormed the warehouse, it was already empty of the two people who mattered most.
Rhoda sat curled in the passenger seat, shaking violently, blood on her lip, hands clenched in her jacket.
Evan drove like a man already dead to his former life.
"You didn't just save me," she whispered. "You burned everything."
"Yes," he said.
"And the crew?"
"I'm done," he replied flatly. "There's no going back after tonight."
Outside, the city blurred past, unaware that two people had just vanished from the lives they were supposed to have.
And behind them, in a warehouse lit by police lights and regret, Evan Mercer's past finally caught up to him.