Page 37 of Cipher: Lethal Algorithm

The darkness amplifies the physical collision. The silence in the apartment stretches tight enough to snap. Her breathing hitches—a sudden, sharp pull of air. The rapid, chaotic drumming of her pulse beats in the space between us.

The adrenaline of the breached safe house instantly morphs into a completely different, infinitely more terrifying kind of panic.

The wall separating handler and asset dissolves in the exact space where our skin touches.

I want to close my hand over hers. I want the rules, the mission, and the entire handler construct to burn to the ground.

She lets me hold the contact. The pure, unvarnished weight of the desire suspended between us is suffocating. We run for our lives, stalked by a lethal corporate kill squad, and the only thing anchoring me to the earth is the rough slide of her fingers against my palm.

Thud.

A heavy, definitive footstep sounds on the wooden staircase directly beneath the apartment.

The spell breaks. We both pull our hands out of the bag as if we touched a live wire. The sudden absence of contact is a physical ache in my chest.

“They’re here.” I grip the heavy canvas handles of her go-bag, ripping it off the floor, and sling it over my shoulder, bringing the SIG back up to a low-ready position.

“Fire escape.” I don’t wait for her to agree. I grab her elbow, hauling her up from the floor.

I lead her through the darkness perfectly, kicking open the rear window leading out to the narrow metal balcony. The humid night air rushes in, carrying the smell of oncoming rain and diesel.

We climb out the window. The rusted iron of the fire escape groans violently under our combined weight. The metal is slick with condensation and years of neglect. I don’t look down into the void of the alley. I pull her down the steep, narrow steps, skipping every third rung, dropping the final ten feet when the folding ladder refuses to deploy.

My boots hit the wet concrete. The impact reverberates up my shins, jarring my spine. Ivy lands beside me a split second later. She rolls her weight perfectly, absorbing the impact, and immediately springs back to her feet.

“Move.”

We run.

We don’t look back at the dark windows of the apartment. We sprint through the labyrinthine alleys of Coloane Village. My lungs burn with the exertion, pulling in the heavy, saturated air. We make three rapid, sharp turns—left down a narrow utility corridor, right past a closed bakery, and a hard switchback through a residential courtyard—to lose anyone setting up on the rooftops the second the front door was breached.

The sound of our boots slapping against the wet pavement echoes off the tight stone walls. Ivy keeps pace, her breathing jagged but steady. We drop the heavy canvas go-bag between us, sharing the weight of the hardware.

We leave the sleepy residential sector entirely behind, bursting out of the suffocating alleyways and sliding directly into the heavy, chaotic pedestrian traffic of the main arterial road connecting the village to the casino strip.

A yellow transit cab slows down near the curb. I rip a fifty-dollar Macau Pataca note from my pocket, slap it against the passenger window, and yank the rear door open.

“Drive.” I shove Ivy into the back seat and slide in directly behind her. “Cotai Strip. Don’t take the highway.”

The driver barely glances in the rearview mirror before stomping the accelerator. The cab surges forward, the neon lights of the passing storefronts flashing through the rain-streaked windows.

The frantic sprint finally catches up to us.

I drop the heavy go-bag onto the floorboards between my boots. The SIG rests on my thigh, my thumb resting heavily on the safety catch. I take a slow, deep breath.

Ivy leans against the opposite door, staring out the window. The streetlights wash over her face, highlighting the deep exhaustion settling into the fine lines around her mouth.

She crossed the international date line, evaded a kill squad, executed a massive hack, and physically met an inside contact—all in the span of seventy-two hours.

The incredible resilience it takes to survive what she just went through astounds me.

My backup burner phone buzzes violently in the tactical rig strapped across my chest.

I pull it free. It’s the secondary emergency frequency I established with Hutch exactly six hours ago.

I flip it open.

“Go.” I keep my voice flat, masking the adrenaline still burning in my muscles.