He looked at me, his gray eyes steady and completely devoid of fear.

“Can you run?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, though my knees felt like water.

“If I tell you to run, you do not look back,” he said. “You do not look for me. You go to the end of the tunnel.”

“What about Hale?” I asked, remembering the text message.

“Hale is smart,” Vincent said. “He knows how to disappear. He has three different identities in his desk.”

A sudden, sharp pop echoed from the front hallway.

It sounded like a wet firecracker.

Then another.

A heavy body thudded against the floorboards, followed by a wet, choking sound.

“That was Leo,” Vincent muttered, his jaw tightening. “My man at the back door.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, his thumb moving rapidly across the screen.

He sent a single command, then dropped the phone onto the desk.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Initiated a hard wipe of the safehouse server,” he said. “They will get nothing from the hard drives.”

The footsteps in the hallway grew louder, more hurried.