Page 37 of Veil of Secrets

She’s barely outside when the door flies back open again.

It slams against the concrete wall with a metal shriek.

The runner is young—eighteen, maybe. Skinny, sweat-soaked, wide-eyed. His shoes skid across the floor.

“Drago!” he shouts. “Back door—they’re—!”

That’s all he gets out.

A second figure crashes through the back entrance. Wood splinters. Chain clatters.

A thug I don’t recognize. Mask off, face sweating, breath heaving, a Glock already raised.

“Found you!” the guy snarls.

I don’t speak.

Don’t think.

The blade is already in my hand.

I close the distance in one step.

One clean sweep—across the throat.

The sound is wet and sharp. Muscle, cartilage, skin—parted before his eyes can register what’s happened.

His body stumbles forward two steps. Then hits the ground like a sack of meat, blood flooding the concrete in fast, ugly rivers.

The runner stumbles back, nearly falling. Elara’s just outside, caught mid-turn, framed in the open doorway.

She doesn’t scream.

She doesn’t bolt.

She stares.

Breathing fast. Chest rising, falling. But no panic in her eyes. Just recognition.

I stand over the body, blood drying on my fingers.

The runner backs into the tool chest, rattling it hard.

“Shit,” he whispers. “I didn’t know they were on me—”

I don’t look at him. I look at her.

Elara steps fully into the garage, eyes flicking from the corpse to my hands, then to my face.

She exhales.

“You always deal with things that fast?”

“Only when there’s no time to think.”

Her mouth presses into a tight line.

She glances once at the runner. Then at the blood. Then back to me.

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