The elevator shuddered beneath my feet, halting between the forty-first and forty-second floors with a jolt that rattled metal and bone. My breath steamed in the sudden silence, harsh and fast. Overhead, the lights flickered once, then settled into a pulsing, feverish red. Somewhere above, the machinery let out a dying groan. The doors wouldn’t budge. I clenched my fist around the flash drive in my coat pocket—the only proof left, forty million dollars’ worth of betrayal zipped and duplicated to exactly no one.
I pressed my back to the wall, straining for any sound besides the throb of my pulse. Then, the doors groaned and parted an inch. Fingers—bare, strong, impossibly steady—wedged into the gap. The metal screamed as Julian Vance forced the doors wide, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie long gone. His hair stuck damply to his forehead. In the red emergency gloom, his eyes looked like silver coins. He crouched there, effortless, predatory.
He said, “Someone cut the brake line on your car.” His voice was quiet, dangerous. “You’re not driving home tonight.”
My mouth dried at the edges. I still hadn’t moved. My hand tightened on the flash drive. The numbers I’d traced, the shell companies, the offshore wires—they’d all pointed to someone powerful enough to make people disappear. But I thought I’d kept ahead. I thought I had more time.
Julian stepped down into the elevator car, the weight of him settling the cables with a metallic sigh. He produced something from his pocket—a small, velvet box. The kind you only see in antique stores or fairy tales. He snapped it open with a flick of his thumb.
An emerald ring, dark as moss, caught the light. Old, heirloom old. The gold setting was worn by generations of promise. He held it out to me, steady and absurdly calm.
“Marry me,” Julian said. “Temporarily. Until Halloween.”
I stared at him. My brain rewrote the words, tried to find meaning where there was only madness. Marry him? The Alpha? CEO, pack leader, the man who could crack elevator doors with his hands? All I’d done was follow the money, the way I always did—until the numbers became names and the names started hunting back.
My phone, pressed hard against my ribs, buzzed. I flinched, fumbling it up with trembling fingers. The screen glowed: UNKNOWN NUMBER. I’d learned not to answer those, not since the late-night texts, the calls that cut off at the second ring. But this time, a single message blinked into existence.
Say yes and you won’t live to see Halloween.
My hands had never sweated this much, not even the day the audit team was called in, not even the night I realized the bank codes belonged to someone with teeth. I looked up at Julian. He watched me, unreadable, but his nostrils flared—already scenting the adrenaline, maybe even the truth. He’d know if I lied. All wolves did.
Outside, somewhere far below, the city rumbled on. But up here, in the narrow coffin of this elevator, the world had shrunk to two people, one velvet box, and the knowledge that I wasn’t safe anywhere else.
Julian’s hand remained steady. The emerald ring caught the light again—a promise, or a warning. My phone vibrated once more, a second message appearing, curt and final: Decide. Now.
I looked at Julian, the flash drive burning a hole in my pocket, and listened to the heavy thud of my heart. The doors were open, but it felt like a cage. And I had to make my move. Now.