Page 11 of Knight

Fabric rustles behind me. The gun disappears. Before I can process what that means, his hand clamps down on my wrists, yanking them down from my head and twisting them until they’re behind my back. Something cold snaps around my right wrist. Panic claws its way up my throat.

"Please." My voice breaks. "Just let me show you the messages. Let me explain."

He grabs my left hand. Another click.

"Get up."

I struggle to my feet but everything's wrong. My arms are trapped behind me. Metal bites into my wrists when I try to pull them apart.

Handcuffs?

He put me in handcuffs.

He shoves me toward the far wall. "Sit. Back against the radiator."

I sink down awkwardly, unable to use my hands for balance. He bends, pushing me backward with the gun against myshoulder, until my back hits the radiator. Then he leans behind me. There’s another click. When I try to pull away from the wall, I can't. He's hooked the handcuffs to the radiator somehow.

"The access codes." His voice is cold, clipped. "How did you get them?"

"Knight sent them. Tonight." I can barely hear myself talking above the hammering of my heart. "He said he found something about Michael's case. Please, just check my phone."

He turns his back on me and walks to the door. My heart slams against my ribs as his hand finds the light switch.

He’s leaving. No!

"Wait!" My voice bounces off the tile walls, shrill and desperate. "Please don't?—"

Darkness crashes down. The door closes with a soft click that sounds like a gunshot in the silence. I'm alone, unable to move, barely able to make out the window's faint outline through my tears.

I gasp. The air is too thin. My wrists burn where the cuffs dig deep.

This isn’t real. Knight was supposed to be here. Knight was supposed to have answers.

Instead I'm trapped in a dark bathroom, hands bound behind me, while a stranger with a gun is somewhere on the other side of that door.

The darkness feels like it's crushing me. Like it's stealing the air from my lungs. Tears spill down my face as reality sinks in.

Where's Knight? What has happened to him? Did I walk into a crime scene?

Oh god, has Knight been murdered?

My ears strain, waiting.Dreading.

What happens when that door opens again?

CHAPTER FIVE

Knight

Silence becamechaos in the span of a single elevator chime.

Now I have an intruder handcuffed in my bathroom, and access codes that shouldn't exist floating around in the world.Thisis the reason why I don't deal with people. Computers don't just walk into your space uninvited. They don't use security codes they shouldn't have. They just do what they're told, which is more than I can say for the woman currently accessorizing my radiator.

I bend to pick up her fallen laptop, the familiar weight of the Glock at my back a constant reminder that some problems can't be solved with code alone.

Priority one: figure out how the fuck she got in here.

I settle at my workstation with the kind of single-minded focus that makes my brothers mock my control issues. The building entry logs load with mocking efficiency, showing me exactly what Idon'twant to see—clean access all the way through.

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