Static flickered first,then grainy, low-quality footage at a fixed angle in an empty warehouse floor with dust drifting through a shaft of light. There was no sound except a faint hum, like electrical interference.
Ethan watched for movement but nothing showed up,He scrubbed forward to ten seconds,then twenty and a full minute but still nothing.
"No," he muttered as his fingers stilled on the trackpad.
He replayed it slower this time and frame by frame but the camera didn't move. There were no figures entering,no sudden cuts,no violence or reveal,just an empty space and the quiet suggestion that something should be there—but wasn't.
Ethan's eyes narrowed as he exited the video and scanned the file properties. The mundane file had been wiped clean and he knew that whoever prepared this knew exactly how to plan a decoy or worse an invitation.
Ethan leaned back slowly as the chair creaked beneath his weight. His pulse had steadied, but something colder had settled in its place.
"She didn't just run," he said quietly to the empty room. "She planned."
The drive wasn't useless and defensive, like something meant to survive being found, searched or even seized without revealing what truly mattered and which meant the real danger wasn't on the flash drive.
It was on Ava.
Ethan closed the laptop with a sharp click and stood. He crossed the apartment in long strides, grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, and shrugged into it without breaking pace. He checked his weapon by feeling alone—loaded, ready—then reached for his keys.
He paused at the door and for a fraction of a second, his gaze flicked back to the desk, to the flash drive still resting there like an innocent piece of plastic.
"You left this on purpose,to make me hesitate."He said as his mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Wrong move."
He shut off the lights and stepped into the hallway and the door locked softly behind him.
Outside, the city had shifted while the rain had thinned to a mist as streets glistened under streetlights and shadows stretching long and deceptive between buildings.
Somewhere out there, Ava Brooks was moving faster,convinced she'd escaped the one man who might be able to keep her alive.
Ethan pulled his collar up against the cold and started down the stairs.She didn't trust him and that was fine.Trust could come later but right now, all that mattered was this:
whoever had chased her, shot at her, and burned down his office would not stop and neither would he.
New York didn't slow down for fear and never had.
Ava moved with the crowd with her head down, letting bodies brush past her as rain slicked the sidewalks and neon reflected off puddles like broken mirrors. Her lungs still burned as every breath reminded her that she hadn't recovered,but stopping was not an option.
She cut down an alley near Delancey while her shoes slapped wet concrete as she vaulted over a trash bag and nearly slipped. Her ankle screamed in protest, but she didn't slow.
Pain was information but fear was fuel.
You shouldn't have run.
The message replayed in her mind, coiling around her nerves.She ducked into a twenty-four-hour bodega, pretending to browse while her reflection stared back at her from the glass cooler doors.
Her phone vibrated in her hands.She flinched—then cursed herself and checked it.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
You made it three blocks. Impressive.
Her stomach dropped as she shoved the phone into her pocket and bolted out the back door, emerging into another narrow street where steam curled from underground vents and that was when she felt the shift.The way the air tightened when something bad was about to happen.
Just then a hand closed around her wrist firmly,not the grip of someone panicking but the grip of someone who had already calculated the outcome.
"Don't scream," Ethan said quietly in her ear. "And don't fight me."
Her pulse spiked violently as instinct screamed at her to run—to bite, kick or do anything, but his body was angled just right, blocking her line of sight from the street as his other hand braced against the brick wall beside her head like a barrier.
"Let go," she hissed.
"In a second," he replied. "When I know you're not about to bolt into traffic."
She twisted her wrist hard but he didn't tighten his grip and that alone made her stop.
Slowly, Ethan released her.She took an immediate step back with a heaving chest.
"You don't get to grab me."
"And you don't get to run away after coming to me for help and blazing up my curiosity," he shot back. "You broke my window and fled barefoot into the city with people actively tracking you, leaving me with a flash drive that doesn't have anything in it."
"I didn't ask you to follow me."
"No," he agreed. "You forced me to."
"You searched my things and the flash drive was a distraction,"Ava said as her jaw tightened.
"Oh,well.You lied to my face."Ethan shot back as they stared at each other, breath fogging between them as the city hummed around them like a living thing that didn't care who survived.
Finally, Ava looked away and that was all the answer Ethan needed.
"Your apartment's compromised," he said. "Your phone is pinging off towers you didn't authorize and whoever contacted you five minutes ago? They were close enough to count your steps."
Her blood went cold. "How do you know about the message?"
"I don't know but I know you will definitely get one."Ethan said.
"They want you moving," he continued. "Alone and panicked. Mistakes happen faster that way."
Ava swallowed. "Then why am I still alive?"
"Because you're useful," he said bluntly. "And because killing you in public creates noise they don't want yet."
Ava hugged her arms around herself as she shivered—not from the cold.
"I don't have anywhere else," she admitted quietly.
Ethan watched her closely as she said them and noted the tension in her shoulders,the way her gaze kept scanning escape routes even now.
"You do," he said. "With me."
"That's not comforting."Ava said as she laughed sharply.
"It's obviously reality."
"You don't get to make rules for my life."Ava said as she shook her head.
"No," he said calmly. "But if you want to survive this, you follow mine."
"And if I don't?"
Ethan leaned in just enough that only she could hear him.
"Then you won't live long enough to regret it."
Finally, she nodded once.
"Fine," she said. "Say them."
"Rule one," Ethan began as he straightened. "You stay with me,you don't disappear and there are no detours."
Ava's lips thinned, but she didn't interrupt.
"Rule two: no phones, no devices, no digital movement without my say-so. You're dark unless I say otherwise."
"That's insane."Ava said sharply.
"Nope,that's survival."
"Rule three," he continued. "You tell me when you feel watched,not after.and not when it's too late."
She hesitated and then nodded again.
"And rule four," Ethan said. "You don't lie to me."
Her chest tightened. "I already did."
"Yes," he agreed. "Once and that's your grace."
Ethan glanced down the street, then back at her. "We're moving."
"Where?"
"Somewhere safer than an apartment you ran from," he said. "And somewhere you won't have a window to break."
They walked together now, close but not touching, their steps unconsciously matching as they merged back into the crowd.
Ava hated how relieved she felt.
"How long will this last?" she asked quietly.
Ethan didn't answer right away.
Then: "Until someone makes the first mistake."
Ava's phone vibrated again and both of them felt it.
Ethan stopped instantly, hand out.
"Don't."
Her fingers hovered, then stilled till the vibration stopped on its own.
"They're testing the line," Ethan said. "Seeing how fast you rea
ct."
Ava exhaled shakily. "So what happens now?"
Ethan looked down at her with his eyes dark and certain.
"Now," he said, "you stop running."