Page 99 of Gilded Saint

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to a safe place.”

“We’re not safe here?”

“Obviously not,” he grinds out. “Go. Move. Now.”

When I return to the office, everything is put away. The duffel he’d been filling now bulges. Barely visible ear pieces peek from his ears.

“Let’s go.”

“How are we getting out of here? Someone is watching both sides of the building. Why don’t we wait them out? They can’t get into the building.”

“We don’t sit and wait. We move.” He’s already at the stairs. “Come on.”

We don’t enter the lift. He opens the closet door, then opens another door within.

“What’s this?”

“Stairs.”

“Huh. I always wondered why there wasn’t stair access.”

“We built the wall out to accommodate the motor for the stairs. I took the opportunity to disguise the stairwell entrance.”

“Wouldn’t anyone with floor plans know it exists? Or anyone in the stairwell?”

“First,” he says, as the heavy metal door closes firmly behind us, “few people casually roam the forty-first floor of a stairwell.” He pulls a handgun from somewhere on his waist and motions for me to go before him. “I’m right behind you.”

“Second?” I ask, fixating on the metal end of his gun and the device attached to the barrel that I’m fairly certain is a silencer.

“Second what?” he asks.

I let one hand glide along the stainless-steel railing for balance. He’s right at my back, and I push myself to go faster. “You said first. What’s the second?”

“You always need an unexpected escape plan. That’s difficult to pull off in a skyscraper.”

“There’s the roof.”

“And that’s one plan. But I didn’t think you’d be down with paragliding through London.”

“Flying high above with nothing but a rickety contraption to keep me afloat sounds like hell.”

“Exactly.”

The shuffling of our feet on concrete steps becomes the only sound. I always assumed there was a stairwell, somewhere, at least for the lower floors, but I’ve never seen a door with a stair label.

On every floor, we pass a metal door with a sign and a number. When we pass the number twenty, it’s the halfway mark, and perspiration coats my skin.

“What’s your real name?”

“You don’t?—”

“No one is listening in this stairwell. I just want to know…I’ll never tell anyone.”

“I wish I could tell you. I do. But I can’t. If one of these guys were to get you, they’re trained to get information out of you.”

“I’d never tell them.”

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