Cora
The elevator doors hissed open into a cavernous, dark garage. The air was thick with the smell of concrete and gasoline. A sleek, black armored SUV sat idling, its headlights cutting through the gloom like a predator’s eyes.
Max didn’t release his grip on my arm. He pulled me toward the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Get in,” he commanded.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I dug my heels into the gritty floor. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“There’s no time.” He wrenched the heavy door open. “Get in, or I will put you in myself.”
“Is that a threat?” I shot back, my voice echoing in the empty space.
“It’s a promise,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. He gave my arm a sharp tug, forcing me to stumble into the plush leather seat.
He slammed the door, and the sound was like a vault sealing shut. The outside world went silent. He moved around the front of the SUV with an unnerving speed and slid into the driver’s seat. The engine, which had been a low rumble, roared to life.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded as he peeled out of the parking space.
He didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the rearview mirror, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“Answer me, Max! Who were those men back there? Were they working for you?”
“No.”
The single word was clipped, final. We shot up a ramp and burst onto the city streets. The sudden glare of streetlights was blinding.
“Then who were they? And how did they get into my building? How did you?”
“Later,” he bit out.
“No, not later. Now! You show up in my server room, drag me out like a criminal, and expect me to just sit here quietly?”
He took a sharp right, cutting off a taxi. The horn blared behind us. My body was thrown against the door.
“I expect you to do whatever it takes to stay alive,” he said, his gaze flicking to the side mirror. “Which, for you, means shutting up.”
My fury was a hot, boiling thing. “This is about Soul, isn’t it? Five years wasn’t enough for you. You had to come back for the finished product.”
“This is bigger than your algorithm, Cora.”
“My algorithm is my life. Something you know nothing about.”
His jaw tightened. He swerved violently into the left lane, accelerating through a yellow light that was turning red. I braced my hands on the dashboard.
“You’re going to get us killed,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Better me than them.” He glanced in the mirror again. “We’ve got a tail. Black sedan. Two cars back.”
I twisted in my seat to look. The headlights were just anonymous dots in the river of traffic behind us.
“So this is real,” I whispered, the anger momentarily replaced by a cold sliver of fear.
“It’s always been real. You just chose to ignore it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He ignored me, his entire focus on the road. He was a terrifyingly good driver. Weaving through traffic with a ruthless precision that felt both reckless and controlled. It was a contradiction. Just like the man himself.
My mind flashed back to a night in college. Driving with him in his old sports car, the top down, the wind in my hair. He drove like this then, too. Fast. Confident. In complete control. I had found it thrilling. Now it just felt like another form of kidnapping.
“They’re gaining,” he said.
“How can you even tell?”
“They just ran a red light three intersections back. They’re not being subtle.”
He took another hard turn, the tires squealing in protest. We were on a darker, industrial street now, lined with warehouses.
“You can’t just outrun them in the middle of the city,” I argued, my voice rising with a fresh wave of panic.
“Who said anything about outrunning them?” He reached over and flipped a switch on the central console. A series of soft clicks echoed around the cabin.
“What did you just do?”
“Locked us in.”
“We were already locked in!”
“Not like this.”
He took a sudden, impossible turn into a narrow alleyway I hadn’t even seen. The SUV scraped against a dumpster, the sound a horrific shriek of metal on metal. He didn’t even flinch.
He killed the headlights. The alley was plunged into near total darkness.
“Stay down,” he whispered.
The black sedan shot past the mouth of the alley, not seeing us. Max waited, counting the seconds. One. Two. Three. His stillness was absolute.
My heart was pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it.
“What now?” I whispered, the words barely audible.
“Now we drive.” He flicked the lights back on and reversed out of the alley, heading in the opposite direction.
“That’s it? That’s your brilliant plan?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“For now.” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to stop myself from shaking. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Safe for who? You or me? Because I have never felt less safe in my entire life.”
“That’s because you have no idea what real danger looks like.”
“And you do? What happened to you, Max? The man I knew coded. He didn’t carry guns and drive like a professional getaway driver.”
He shot me a look then. Just a quick glance, but it was enough. His eyes were harder than I remembered. Colder. The easy charm I had once fallen for was gone, replaced by something dark and unforgiving.
“The man you knew doesn’t exist anymore,” he said, his voice a low rumble that sent an unwanted shiver down my spine.
“Good,” I spat back. “I hated that guy.”
A ghost of a smile, humorless and grim, touched his lips. “I know.”
We drove in silence for a few more minutes, leaving the city lights behind. The atmosphere in the SUV was suffocating. It was the forced proximity, the shared history, the lingering scent of him that filled the small space.
He was my rival. The man who betrayed me. But my body, the traitorous, stupid thing it was, remembered the feel of his hand on the small of my back, the weight of his arm around my shoulders. It remembered the safety I used to feel in his presence.
I hated him for it. I hated myself more.
“So that’s it?” I finally said, unable to stand the quiet. “No explanation? No answers? You just expect me to trust you?”
“I don’t expect you to trust me,” he said, turning onto a winding coastal highway. The ocean was a black, churning void to our left. “I expect you to be smart enough to recognize that I’m your only option.”
“I’d rather take my chances with the men with guns.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
His certainty was infuriating. Infuriating and, deep down, horribly accurate. As much as I despised him, the memory of him shielding me from gunfire was seared into my brain. He had protected me. Without hesitation.
It didn’t make sense. None of it did.
“Why, Max?” I asked, my voice quieter now, the anger spent. “Why are you doing this?”
He was silent for a long time, his eyes on the dark road ahead. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he spoke, his voice low and possessive.
“Because you’re mine to protect.”
