Ch.37: The Confrontation (Remote)

The double doors at the end of the hall swung open. Marcus Sterling strode in, flanked by two more guards. He looked annoyed, like I was a spill on his rug.

"You have a bad habit of showing up where you're not wanted, Harper," Sterling said, adjusting his cufflinks. "And an even worse habit of not staying dead."

"I'm hard to kill," I said, stepping away from the desk so I could see both of them. "Ask your cleaner."

"Kael is... unreliable," Sterling admitted. "Which is why I'm handling this personally."

He pulled a gun from his jacket. A sleek, suppressed pistol.

"Give me the key, Harper. And maybe I'll let you live long enough to stand trial."

"I don't have the key," I said. "It's gone. Destroyed."

"Liar," Mia said, sipping her champagne. "She's bluffing, Marcus. She needs it to clear Vane."

"I don't need the key to clear Vane," I said, looking at Mia. "I just need the truth. About Liam."

"We already covered this," Mia sighed, bored. "Liam was a liability. He died. End of story."

"Is it?" I asked. "Or is that just what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? You didn't just let him die, Mia. You set him up. You told him to meet you in that alley. You told him you had a safe house."

"He was going to sell us out!" Mia shouted, her composure cracking. "He was going to give the drive to Vane! Do you know what would have happened to us? Sterling would have liquidated the firm. We would have lost everything!"

"So you killed him for money?"

"I killed him for *survival*!" Mia screamed. "It was him or us, Harper! He made his choice!"

"And you made yours," I said quietly.

I looked at Sterling. He was watching Mia with a look of mild amusement.

"Touching," he said. "But boring. The key, Harper. Last chance."

I raised my hands. I let the sleeve of my ruined dress fall back.

The silver bracelet glinted in the light. The tiny piano charm swayed.

"I don't have the key," I said. "But I do have this."

I tapped the charm.

"Do you remember this, Mia? Mom gave it to me. But Liam modified it. He put a transmitter inside. He said he wanted us to always be connected."

Mia frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that this entire conversation," I said, my voice steady, "is being broadcast. Live. To every screen in the city."

Sterling's eyes widened. He looked at the massive TV on the wall. It was still playing the news loop.

"You're lying," he said. "The network is jammed."

"Not this frequency," I said. "It's an analog signal. Shortwave. Bypasses the digital grid entirely. And Julian Vane is on the other end, patching it into the emergency broadcast system."

I looked at Mia.

"Say hello to the world, sister. You just confessed to capital murder in front of ten million people."

Mia's face went white. She looked at the bracelet. She looked at Sterling.

"Marcus?" she whispered.

Sterling didn't look at her. He looked at me. His gun didn't waver.

"Kill the feed," he ordered the guards.

"You can't," I said. "It's already out. It's on the blockchain. It's in the cloud. It's everywhere."

Sterling's face twisted. The mask of the sophisticated lawyer fell away, revealing the thug underneath.

"Then we change the narrative," he snarled.

He raised the gun. He aimed at my chest.

"Tragic," he said. "Deranged lawyer breaks into penthouse, kills partner in a fit of jealousy, then is shot by security."

He fired.

I didn't move. I didn't flinch.

Because the gun didn't fire.

It clicked.

Sterling frowned. He pulled the trigger again. *Click.*

"What the..."

"Kael says hello," I said.

The guards raised their weapons. But before they could fire, the windows behind me exploded.

Glass shattered inward in a storm of diamonds. A dark shape swung through the opening on a rappel line.

The Cleaner.

He landed in a crouch, his rifle already up. He fired two controlled bursts. The guards dropped, screaming, clutching their legs.

Sterling spun around, trying to clear the jam in his gun.

Silas didn't shoot him. He walked up to him and backhanded him across the face with the stock of his rifle. Sterling crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

I looked at Mia.

She was standing by the desk, the champagne glass shattered at her feet. She looked small. Terrified.

"Harper..." she stammered.

"Don't," I said.

I walked over to her. I looked at the sister I had raised. The sister I had protected.

"It's over, Mia."

"He made me do it," she sobbed, reaching for me. "He threatened me!"

"No," I said, stepping back. "You wanted it. You wanted the power. You wanted the money. You just didn't want to pay the price."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the stun baton.

"But the bill is due."

I didn't use the baton. I didn't have to.

I pointed to the door.

"Run," I said.

"What?"

"Run," I repeated. "The police are coming. The real police. Not Sterling's goons. If they find you here, you go to prison for life. If you run... maybe you make it to the border."

Mia stared at me. "You're letting me go?"

"I'm giving you a head start," I said coldly. "Because you're my sister. And because I want you to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder."

Mia didn't hesitate. She grabbed her purse and ran out the door.

I watched her go. I felt a piece of my soul tear away with her.

Silas walked over to me. He looked at the empty doorway.

"You should have let me kill her," he said.

"She's dead to me," I said. "That's enough."

I looked at Sterling, groaning on the floor. I looked at the shattered window, the city lights burning below.

"Is it done?" I asked.

"Not yet," Silas said. "We have the confession. But we still need the drive to prove the laundering. We need to clear Julian."

"We don't have the key," I reminded him. "Sterling took the shard."

"Sterling didn't take the shard," a voice said from the broken window.

I turned.

Kael was standing on the ledge, wind whipping her coat. She held up her hand.

Between her fingers was the shard.

"I swiped it back," she said, smiling. "When he was gloating in the hallway."

She tossed it to me. I caught it. It was cold. Heavy.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I hate him," Kael said. "And because you were right. I'm tired of being a ghost."

She looked at Sterling.

"Finish it, Harper. Burn it down."

I gripped the shard.

"Let's go to court," I said.

The elevator dinged.

But it wasn't the police.

It was Mia.

She was back. She stood in the doorway, breathless, wild-eyed.

"I can't," she gasped. "I can't run."

"Why not?" I asked.

She pointed a shaking finger at me.

"Because you have the key," she said. "And I know the password."

"I know the password too," I said. "It's my birthday."

"No," Mia whispered. "That's the first password. There's a second layer. Liam told me before he died."

She stepped into the room. Her fear was gone. Replaced by something colder. Calculation.

"You need me, Harper. If you want to open that drive, you need me."

She smiled. It was the same smile she gave the camera in the alley.

"You were always too smart for your own good, Harper."