The boardroom was a glass cage suspended on the forty-second floor, overlooking the smog-choked, concrete veins of the city. Clara Vance stood at the head of the long mahogany table, her hands flat against the polished wood to stop them from shaking.

She had spent the last forty-eight hours trying

The harsh, artificial glow of the laptop screen illuminated the tears streaming down Clara’s face. She sat on the floor of her modest apartment, her knees pulled tightly to her chest, rocking back and forth as her phone vibrated relentlessly on the coffee table.

*Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.*

She didn’t

The descent into the belly of the city felt less like a drive and more like a plunge into freezing water. Victor’s Aston Martin glided through a subterranean parking structure beneath the financial district, the shadows swallowing the sleek vehicle whole.

Clara sat rigid in the passenger seat, the