Chapter 1
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
I unzip the black leather duffel bag resting on the metal counter, revealing neatly stacked bundles of cash, then look at the man opposite me.
“Just as promised.”
He is a repulsive-looking man, dressed in a shiny leather jacket that has seen better days, with a stained white shirt unbuttoned far enough to expose a generous amount of chest hair. His balding head glistens beneath the fluorescent lights, and two gold teeth flash whenever he opens his mouth. Even from across the counter, the stench of cheap cigarettes is almost unbearable.
I have always despised loan sharks. They prey on the weak and desperate, making fortunes off people with nowhere else to turn. Unfortunately, this particular bastard is one of the best in the business, and I am hardly in a position to be selective.
His eyes brighten at the sight of the money.
“Here you go. Twelve-hour turnaround,” he announces proudly, sliding a yellow envelope across the counter.
I take it without thanking him and immediately examine its contents as he gestures for two equally unpleasant associates to start counting the cash.
“Alana White.”
“Josie Jones.”
“Lana Hunter.”
Three different names, three different identities, and three passports belonging to women who don’t exist.
I inspect each one carefully, running my thumb over the pages and examining the seals, photographs and printing. Everything appears flawless, right down to the smallest detail. Whoever produced these did an extraordinary job, and I have to admit the ridiculous amount of money I just handed over might actually be justified.
To the untrained eye, nothing suggests any of them is a forgery.
And that is precisely what I am paying for.
“Now, here’s another twenty.”
I pull several thick bundles of cash from my duffel bag and lay them neatly across the metal counter, watching the man’s attention shift to the money with renewed interest.
“Make me disappear,” I tell him, gesturing towards the group of cyberpunks hunched over their computers at the far end of the room. Half of them look barely old enough to drink, though judging by the number of monitors displaying stolen bank accounts and financial transactions, they have already made quite a career out of ruining people’s lives.
“Your mate Raven said you were something else,” he remarks, studying me with an unpleasant grin. His eyes return to the cash, but he makes no effort to collect it himself. Instead, he snaps his fingers, summoning one of the younger men to take the bundles towards the counting machines.
“Full name and date of birth,” he instructs, pushing a piece of paper and a cheap ballpoint pen across the counter. “Give us until tomorrow, sweetheart, and you’ll be a Jane Doe. No records, no history, nothing for anyone to find.”
That is precisely what I need.
I take the pen and quickly write down the requested information, barely thinking twice before sliding the paper back to him. A glance at my watch tells me it is already past two in the morning, leaving me less than ten hours before I leave this godforsaken country. Everything is arranged, right down to the vehicle that will take me across the border, and I don’t need another complication.
“Remi Everett.”
He reads my name aloud, but the peculiar change in his voice makes me look up.
At first, I think he is just struggling to pronounce it. Then I notice his smile has disappeared, and he stares at the paper so intently that I wonder if I have written something wrong. His eyes move from my name to my face and back again, his lips parting as the colour gradually drains from his cheeks.
“Remi...” he repeats, much more quietly this time. “Everett?”
“Yes,” I answer impatiently. “Is there a problem?”
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he stares at me for several uncomfortable seconds, his expression shifting from disbelief to something disturbingly like recognition. Then, without warning, he shoves his chair backwards and rises so abruptly that it crashes against the wall.
“STOP COUNTING, CUNTS! GIVE HER THE FUCKING MONEY BACK!”
His voice thunders through the room, startling several of the young men at their computers. Before I can understand what is happening, he storms towards the cash-counting machines and strikes one of his employees across the back of the head.
“Are you fucking deaf? I said, " Give it back! All of it!”
“Wait, what?” I straighten immediately, watching him snatch bundles of money from the machines. “Stop! What the hell are you doing?”
He turns toward me, his expression so different from the smug confidence he’d shown moments ago that I almost fail to recognise him.
“You need to take your money and leave. Right fucking now. We don’t want your business.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Whoa, hold on. What are you talking about? You just agreed to—”
“Were you followed?”
The question catches me completely off guard.
“What?”
“Were you followed here?” he demands again, hurrying to the counter.
“No, I don’t think—”
“WERE YOU FUCKING FOLLOWED?”
His sudden outburst silences the entire room. Even the men operating the computers stop typing, their attention fixed on their employer, who seems to be losing whatever little composure he had left.
“Check the fucking cameras!” he orders, pointing towards the security guards stationed near the entrance. “Every entrance, every street, every fucking vehicle that’s come anywhere near this building tonight. I want to know if anyone followed her!”
The guards exchange uneasy looks before dispersing, while the younger men scramble to put the money back in my bag. One of them accidentally drops a bundle, earning himself another furious stream of curses.
I have dealt with enough criminals to recognise when a situation is turning dangerous, but this is something entirely different. The man isn’t angry because I have insulted him or attempted to cheat him. He is frightened, and judging by the way his hands tremble as he reaches for another cigarette, whatever has terrified him is considerably more powerful than the money sitting on his counter.
“Listen,” I begin, struggling to keep my irritation under control. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I paid you a hundred thousand dollars to do a job, and I expect you to—”
“No. You listen to me.”
He comes around the counter so quickly that I instinctively step back. For one unpleasant moment, I think he’ll grab me, but he stops short, glances nervously toward the entrance, then lowers his voice.
“Take your money, take those passports and get the fuck out of my establishment. I don’t care where you go, and I don’t want to know. Do you understand?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters, dragging a hand over his balding head. “You have no idea, do you?”
I narrow my eyes. “No idea about what?”
He looks at me again, and I can practically see him debating whether to answer. Whatever he knows, he clearly decides isn’t worth sharing, so he snatches the paper with my information from the counter and tears it into several pieces.
“You’ve never been here,” he tells me firmly. “You’ve never met me, we’ve never conducted any business together, and if anyone asks, I don’t know who the fuck Remi Everett is.”
He grabs my duffel bag and shoves it at me so hard that several bundles threaten to spill out.
“Now get out. Before you get every single person in this building killed.”
I open my mouth to argue, but something in his expression stops me.
I have spent most of tonight sitting opposite a man who makes his fortune exploiting desperate people, a man with enough criminal connections to arrange three convincing passports within twelve hours. Yet the mere mention of my name has reduced him to a trembling wreck who would rather surrender a hundred thousand dollars than have anything further to do with me.
And that frightens me considerably more than his shouting.
Men like him don’t frighten easily, and they certainly don’t return money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Whatever he knows about Remi Everett is enough to make him believe doing business with me is a death sentence.
A deafening siren suddenly blares through the warehouse, so loud that I instinctively cover one ear. For a moment, I assume it is the police. Still, the sound comes from somewhere inside the building, accompanied by a series of flashing red lights mounted along the ceiling—my attention darts to the surveillance monitors, where every screen has gone black.
Someone has disconnected the cameras.
The reaction is immediate. Men abandon their computers, chairs overturn, and the room erupts into absolute chaos as everyone scrambles towards the exits. Whatever arrangement these criminals have with one another clearly ends the moment their own lives are threatened. No one bothers to help anyone else, and the man who was shouting at me seconds ago has disappeared behind a security door.
“Fuck!”
I snatch the yellow envelope from the counter, stuff it into my jeans, then grab whatever bundles of cash I can fit into the duffel bag. I have no time to count the money, much less worry about what I might leave behind. The siren keeps screaming overhead, and through the commotion, I hear the heavy mechanical grinding of the warehouse’s roller doors as they begin to descend.
They are closing every exit.
A crowd has already gathered near the main loading entrance, where several men shove and strike one another in a desperate attempt to squeeze beneath the narrowing gap. I consider joining them until one unfortunate bastard is knocked to the ground and nearly trampled by the others.
Instead, I turn toward the cyberpunks, who have abandoned their gear and are running toward a narrow passage behind the workstations. These little bastards practically live in this warehouse, and if anyone knows a way out that doesn’t involve the main entrance, it’s them. They are small, quick and accustomed to slipping through places most grown men wouldn’t think to look.
Like rats.
I follow them through a maze of storage racks, nearly losing my footing as I round a corner and squeeze past one of the younger boys. He shouts something at me, but I have no intention of stopping to listen. My phone begins vibrating insistently against my thigh, the buzzing almost lost beneath the relentless alarm. I ignore it and focus on keeping up with the others, convinced we're approaching an emergency exit.
Then the screaming begins.
At first, I mistake it for the general panic behind us, until a series of sharp cracks echoes through the warehouse.
Gunshots.
The boys ahead of me scatter in different directions, and I instinctively duck as another shot rings out somewhere beyond the storage racks. Someone screams for help, followed by a terrible crash, but I am already changing direction, gripping the duffel bag so tightly the leather straps dig into my palm.
There is no mistaking what is happening now.
Whoever has entered this warehouse isn’t here to make arrests.
I push through an unmarked metal door and stumble into the cold night air, finding myself at the rear of the enormous building. A long stretch of loading docks extends in both directions, illuminated by industrial floodlights that cast harsh shadows across the concrete. Rows of abandoned shipping containers stand beyond the loading bays, and for one hopeful second, I think I have found my way out.
Then I see the fence.
An enormous security fence runs along the entire perimeter, topped with electrified wires and reinforced posts. The nearest gate is shut, and no guardhouse or pedestrian exit is within reach. I hurry along the concrete anyway, searching for a gap, an opening, anything that might let me through, but the farther I run, the more obvious it becomes that I made a terrible mistake.
I have escaped the warehouse only to trap myself in its loading yard.
Behind me, another burst of gunfire erupts, followed by the distant sound of men shouting orders. My phone vibrates again, and this time I yank it from my pocket, prepared to silence the damn thing. Before I can look at the screen, however, the unmistakable roar of a powerful engine makes me turn.
A black SUV swings around the far corner of the warehouse at considerable speed, its tyres screeching against the concrete as it comes directly towards me, and I stop dead.
The vehicle accelerates for several more seconds before braking sharply across my path, cutting off the only clear route back towards the building. Its headlights strike me full in the face, forcing me to raise an arm against the blinding glare. I stumble backwards, my heart hammering so violently that I can barely hear the engine idling in front of me.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then the driver’s door opens.
A polished black shoe touches the concrete, followed by the unmistakable figure of a man I have spent far too long trying to forget.
The duffel bag nearly slips from my fingers. Of all the people who could have found me tonight, he is the one I have feared most.
As he steps into the headlights, looking entirely unhurried despite the chaos unfolding behind us, I realise with sickening certainty that the warehouse, the alarms, and the men running for their lives were all part of his arrival.
My nightmare has finally caught up with me.
“Caius,” I whisper, my voice barely audible above the distant gunfire.
He stands beneath the harsh glare of the headlights, dressed in an immaculate black suit, looking entirely out of place amidst the chaos unfolding around us. His expression shows no anger, no sign he spent the night hunting me down. He watches me with the unnerving patience of a man who has already decided how this evening will end.
“Get in the car. Now.”
His voice is quiet, almost conversational, and somehow that makes the command worse. I tighten my grip on the duffel bag, painfully aware that the warehouse behind me offers no possibility of escape.
“No—”
“I am going to tie you to that chair, Remi, and you’re going to watch.”
He gestures towards the warehouse without bothering to look at it. Another gunshot echoes through the building, followed by a man’s desperate scream, but Caius doesn’t so much as blink.
“Watch what?” I manage to ask.
He regards me with complete indifference.
“What happens to people who help you run from me?”
My blood runs cold. Behind him, another black SUV pulls into the loading yard, its occupants remaining inside as though awaiting instructions. Caius barely acknowledges its arrival, even as another gunshot echoes through the warehouse.
“Now,” he says, opening the passenger door, “you may get into the car willingly, or you may spend the rest of the night learning why everyone in that building was so frightened when they heard your name.”
“Fuck you!”
He smiles at my outburst, seemingly entertained by my refusal.
“Imagine what Daemon will do when he finds out.”
The mention of his brother makes my stomach drop. I have spent the entire night trying to get as far from these men as possible, and now Caius reminds me that being found by him may be the least of my problems.
“And there she is,” he murmurs. “I was beginning to wonder whether anything frightened you anymore.”
I tighten my grip on the duffel bag, wishing I had managed to conceal my reaction. Of all the threats he could have made, Caius has chosen the one name guaranteed to silence me.
Daemon Voss.
