“Are you sure breaking and entering is the first step in this game?” Eva asks me as I pull my car to a stop under a shady tree near a large, empty parking lot under a looming office building.

“Yes,” I say curtly, and I reach behind the seat to pick up a black bag and set it in my lap. “Gathering intel is the first step to any job. You can’t accuse him of anything unless we have information on our side. Especially information he doesn’t think you have.”

Eva has a good memory. She directed me to the Brighton Corp offices from her sole visit here. Convincing her that it was necessary to come here after hours was only easy because I sprung it on her quickly, and that was intentional—I didn’t want to give her enough time to backpedal.

“He must not even know I’m alive,” she says, her voice sounding a little distant, and I look over to her. I set a hand on her leg and give her thigh a gentle squeeze, and she smile at me.

“We’ll use that to our advantage,” I say. “If he thinks you’re dead, he thinks all his problems are gone. His guard is down.”

“Right,” she says, taking a deep breath and looking up at the looming tower in front of us. “And that is why... we’re... breaking... into his office.” She says the words as if she can’t believe she’s saying them.

I smile. It’s been a while since working with someone so inexperienced.

“I’m not killing anyone,” I say.

“The fact that you have to clarify that does not help,” she says, and I roll my eyes. I take out a headpiece from the bag and hand it to her.

“Put this on your ear. It will let us communicate. If something goes wrong down here, tell me.”

“Goes wrong?” she asks, her eyes wide.

“If someone gives you trouble for being parked here,” I explain, “or anything else.”

She takes a breath, eyes wide, and nods. “Right. Sure. I’ll just explain to the cops that I’m here investigating my kidnapping by breaking into a CEO’s office.”

“Perfect,” I say with a sarcastic grin.

“So I’ll be honest,” she says, looking up and down at my all-black outfit, “it looks like you know what you’re doing, but, I mean, do you?” Her question isn’t a challenge—I know she’s just prying to know more about me. What we’re doing tonight is certainly enough to raise some questions.

“Yes,” I say simply, and before she can say anything further, I get out of the car and make my way toward the building.

“Can you hear me?” I say a few steps later into my headpiece.

“Um. Yeah,” comes her voice in my ear.

“Good,” I say, “I’m going in.”

I have only one gun and one knife in my clothes. I’m not expecting a firefight, but if there is one, I’m not defenseless.

Getting low to the ground, I move up to the back of the building and crouch behind an elevated ramp by one of the fire exits. I reach into my jacket and take out a black jack—a small leather rod with hard metal inside.

My eyes go up to the floodlights above the doors, and I follow the wires down to a small metal box not far from where I’m hiding. I move over to it, take out a pair of wire cutters, and with a quick motion, the lights go out.

Now, all I have to do is wait.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take long. The fire door opens, and one of the security guards walks out. He’s a tall, stocky man, and I hear him grumbling about a rat problem as he makes his way down the ramp.

I intercept him.

Jumping up on the railing, I grab him by the scruff of his collar and hit him over the back of the head with my black jack. He doesn’t even have time to shout before he goes unconscious.

In the darkness, I drag him behind a hedge and take his hat, overshirt, and badge. That’s all I need for the cameras inside.

Keeping my head down, I start making my way up the stairs of the fire escape.

Most office buildings at least leave their stairways mostly barren, but even the fire escape route in this office looks fancy, all a modern, sleek, black design with the occasional piece of art hanging on the wall.

I take the stairs up as high as I possibly can. If Blake Brighton keeps his office here, it’ll be at the top of the building.

“How’re things going in there?” I hear a cautious voice say over my earpiece after some time of climbing.

“Getting a workout,” I whisper back. “All clear out there?”

“I saw some movement by the building a while ago,” she says.

“That was me,” I say. “If you see something move there again, let me know.”

“Um... roger?” she says, and I crack a smile.

Finally, I get to the top floor and peer through the window to the main hallway. The light of a guard’s flashlight is shining on the walls for a few moments, but soon, he turns it away and walks the opposite direction. I take care not to make noise while opening the door, and I slip in.

Blake’s office is easy to locate. There’s an opening to a lobby with tiled floor and large plants decorating it, and a heavy door stands on the opposite end of the room.

There’s an empty receptionist’s desk next to it.

I make my way over to it, carrying myself as if I’m a regular security guard who belongs there. I know there are at least four camera angles on me.

Fortunately, I’ll never be seen here again after tonight.

At the receptionist’s desk, I hold my stolen badge over a little glass scanner, and it beeps softly. I press the button under it, and I hear the door to the main office to my left click open. I look up as I hear footsteps coming my way, and I slip into the office hurriedly.

The space inside is large and lavish. If I were a CEO, I wouldn’t mind a place like it. Black floors and ceilings, and my guess is the lights are a dull white. The big black desk in the middle of the room is curved and covered by papers, folders, and a few computer monitors. A few inconspicuous plants line the walls, and over them hang pieces of modern art.

I make my way to the desk and take out a small thumb drive from my pocket. Rather than dig through all the information by hand, I plan to take it all home and sort through it later, so to speak. His personal laptop is easy to spot, standing out from the rest of the office stylistically. What’s more, it’s still open.

I stick the thumb drive in, and the screen flickers on to show a personal email open. Blake is clearly not used to having to be smart in his work.

Still, I don’t touch anything—instead, the program I have on my thumb drive does the work of downloading everything I need for me.

Three minutes into the download, I hear the door click.

My heart doesn’t stop, and my face doesn’t go pale—I just act.

I drop to my knees and cram myself under the desk, and I remain perfectly still as the door swings open, and I hear footsteps entering the room. They walk slowly, and I see the light of a flashlight pass overhead.

There’s silence for a few seconds before I hear a voice.

“... Rob? You in here again? Told you your ass is fired if I catch you reading HR emails again.”

I nearly hold my breath as the guard waits for an answer, coming closer. His legs appear in front of me.

My hand is on my gun.

All he has to do is look down, and our eyes will meet.

I hold my breath and grip the pistol, finger sliding to the trigger.

The guard’s legs turn.

He walks back out the door, muttering to himself as the door slams shut behind him. I let out a breath, removing my hand from the gun and coming out of the desk.

The thumb drive has finished its work. I take the little piece of plastic full of terabytes of information, and I move to the door to make my escape.

* * *

On the drive home, Eva has said little to me. She was stunned when I got into the car as I left, having abandoned the guard’s items with the unconscious man. I just handed her the thumb drive and took off.

Finally, as we’re getting close to the driveway to the safe house, she takes in a breath and speaks.

“What was that?”

“A break-in,” I say simply.

“You know what I mean,” she says, her voice a little less patient than usual.

I arch an eyebrow at her.

She throws up her hands, rolling her eyes, and stammers a little. “You’re like, six and a half feet tall, wear all black, hardly say a word, and you just broke into one of the richest corporate offices in the state like you were stopping for dinner at a fast food place.”

“I don’t eat fast food.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh as we pull up to the house, and I get out of the car. I start to make my way casually to the house, but she jogs around the car to catch up to me, those brilliant blue eyes looking up at me defiantly.

“The more you shut me down, the more I’m going to ask, you know,” she says. “Who are you? I’m glad you found me, and I can’t believe I’m lucky enough that you’re willing to help me, but…”

I stop in my tracks, frowning down at her in silence for a few long moments. Her resolve doesn’t melt away. We just stare at each other, tense, searching each other’s eyes.

Finally, I break the silence, speaking slowly, each deep syllable pronounced carefully.

“I’m a man who bought a safe house, doesn’t go into town, wants you to stay out of sight, and was able to get the information you need to save your life.” I pause, letting that all sink in before continuing. “If that makes you nervous, perhaps you should think twice before prying too far into my life.”

I walk past her, nodding for her to follow me into the house.

“It’s late, you should get to bed,” I say once we’re inside. She follows me silently, but her searching eyes are on me—I can tell she’s hardly swayed by my words. That’s new.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“More work on the house,” I lie. “I don’t want to fall behind my schedule. I like to keep things timely.”

“At night?”

“If need be,” I say. We stare at each other for another few seconds before she turns on her heel and heads down the hallway, her feet stomping a little louder than necessary.

I roll my eyes and shake my head as I head outside.

She was right, of course. It would be stupid to do any kind of work in the darkness. But there is one thing that I need to take care of before I move ahead with the renovations, especially since there’s another set of eyes and hands prying around the house now.

I make my way down to the freezer after I hear Eva’s door close.

I open the lid and look down at the frozen remains of Geoffrey Mink.

Loading them into a sack, I make my way back out to the yard and head to the shed. There’s no quiet way of doing what I’m about to do, but out here in the woods where manual labor and woodworking is constantly happening, there’s much less risk involved than there would be anywhere else.

I have a wood chipper hooked up around the side of the shed.

Eva thinks I’m doing a little construction, so the noise shouldn’t worry her too much. I open the sack and look over the pieces of the horrible, evil old man, frozen solid. It’s a grizzly thing, disposing of a body, but I take pleasure in knowing that it means this man will never be able to hurt anyone ever again.

I put on some hearing protection, turn the wood chipper on, and hear the hellish noise it makes, muffled to my ears.

I pick up the first piece of Mink and slowly feed it into the machine.

As I work, my thoughts are distracted by Eva. Having her around is a definite risk, and I can tell that she’s smart. I’m sure she’s figured a few things out about who I am and what I do, but I wonder how deep her curiosity will take her.

More importantly, I worry what she will do when she finds out who I really am.

The body parts I feed into the machine come out messily on the other side, but this will ensure Mink’s body is never a problem for me. They’re spraying out onto some of the wreckage we destroyed earlier, too, which we’ll burn as ordinary garbage later. Two birds, one stone, as long as I can keep the smoke under control.

With all that out of the way, maybe I can give this broken girl something close to a cozy home. And maybe then, between that and the strange and interesting turn of events her own life has taken, she’ll forget all about prying into me.

Wishful thinking, I tell myself with a smile.

But as I finish the dark deed and turn the wood chipper off to make sure everything is taken care of, something feels off. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I feel watched.

I turn my head toward the house, and for the first time tonight, what I see makes my heart skip a beat.

Eva’s white face is watching me from the window.

She saw everything.