The explosion at the Quinn Architecture Firm hadn't been a fire; it had been a pressure wave of glass and pulverized limestone.
Nora coughed, the taste of ancient dust and cordite thick on her tongue. She felt a heavy weight pressing her down—Caspian. He had tackled her behind the reinforced mahogany desk a split second before Arthur Sterling's world went black.
"Caspian..." she wheezed, her hand searching through the debris until she found his shoulder.
He groaned, shifting the weight of a fallen ceiling beam off his back. Even covered in grey dust, his eyes were sharp, scanning the smoking hole where the office window used to be. The black helicopter was still there, a mechanical vulture hovering in the storm.
"The Ledger," Caspian rasped, his voice raw. "Do you have it?"
Nora clutched the bag to her chest. "It's here. But the terminal... the transfer..."
"It's gone, Nora. The hardware is melted," Caspian said, hauling her to her feet. He didn't look at the fire; he looked at the grappling hooks still latched to the floor. "But the money is already in the Aegis accounts. Arthur was too slow. Now, we have sixty seconds before the Syndicate's 'Board' realizes they don't need us alive to claim the Quinn name."
He pulled a small, silver device from his pocket—the second detonator Nora had seen earlier. "I told you I was the Wall, Nora. But sometimes, a wall needs to become a wrecking ball."
He pressed a sequence of buttons, and the building groaned. Far below them, in the structural foundations Nora's father had designed, a series of controlled charges blew. It wasn't meant to collapse the building—it was meant to drop the elevator shafts and seal the stairwells.
"We're trapped," Nora whispered, looking at the blocked exit.
"No," Caspian said, grabbing a rappelling harness from a hidden compartment under the desk. "We're making an exit they didn't account for."
He hooked the harness to her waist, his hands steady despite the chaos. He pulled her flush against his chest, his heart beating a steady, rhythmic drum against her own. "Hold onto me. Don't look down. Look at me."
Nora wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. The smell of him—cedar, espresso, and the metallic tang of adrenaline—was the only thing keeping her sane.
They didn't jump. They descended.
Using a high-speed magnetic winch, Caspian dropped them through the center of the building's atrium, falling through the smoke and the screams of the Sterling security guards. They landed in the subterranean garage just as a black van screeched to a halt in front of them.
The door slid open. It was Caspian's lead security officer. "Boss! We have the perimeter, but the feds are four blocks out. We need to move."
Caspian shoved Nora into the van and climbed in after her, slamming the door. As the van peeled out, Nora looked back at the Quinn Architecture Firm. The top floor was a crown of fire against the Northport skyline.
"Arthur didn't make it out," Nora said, her voice hollow.
"Arthur chose his side a long time ago," Caspian replied. He took the Ledger from her bag, his fingers tracing the scorched leather. "He thought the Syndicate was his partner. He didn't realize he was just their insurance policy."
He looked at Nora, his expression unreadable. "You're a billionaire now, A.C. Benedette. You have the money, you have the Ledger, and you have the Sterlings' blood on your hands. Is this what you wanted?"
Nora looked at her hands. They were covered in dust and a small smear of Caspian's blood. She felt the weight of the Quinn legacy—the billions of dollars, the secrets, the lives destroyed.
"I wanted justice," she said, her voice gaining a new, cold edge. "But I'll settle for the throne."