Find out what comes next as the story continues in the following chapter.

The flight to Seattle was a blur of cramped airplane seats and cheap coffee, the taste of which would forever remind me of the night I stopped being a victim. I had paid for the ticket in cash, using a secondary identity I’d "acquired" back when Alex and I were supposedly building our life together. It was a name I hadn't used in three years: Elena Thorne.

I arrived in Seattle under a relentless, iron-gray drizzle that seemed to seep into the very marrow of my bones. I didn't check into a hotel. I took a bus to the address I’d pulled from the ledger—a sleek, modern apartment building in the upscale Capitol Hill district.

I waited in a park across the street, watching the building. Subject: Sarah Jenkins.

She walked out at 8:00 a.m. sharp. She looked so much like me it was nauseating—the same dark hair, the same professional dress, the same confident gait of a woman who had worked hard for everything she owned. She was walking toward a coffee shop, oblivious to the fact that her death warrant had already been signed.

I followed her. I didn't want to spook her, but I needed to get close.

She sat at a table by the window, opening a laptop, her face soft and focused. I walked in, ordered a tea, and sat at the table directly behind hers.

"Sarah Jenkins?" I whispered.

She jumped, her chair scraping against the floor. She turned, her eyes wide with alarm. "Who are you?"

"My name is Maya," I said, keeping my voice low. "I’m like you. Or at least, I was."

She stared at me, a flicker of confusion crossing her features. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a placeholder," I said, pushing the ledger across the table. "You married a man who calls himself Mark, right? He works in finance? He's a consultant?"

Sarah’s face paled. "How do you know that?"

"Check your safe," I said. "Check the thumb drives. Check the back of the family pictures you have hanging in your living room."

She looked at me, her initial alarm giving way to a deep, visceral dread. She grabbed the ledger, opened it, and saw her own name. She started to cry—a silent, shaking grief that was more devastating than any scream.

"He told me he loved me," she whispered.

"He’s using you, Sarah. He’s using your assets, your life, and your home to fuel a machine you can't even imagine. And in forty-eight hours, he’s going to 'finalize' you."

She looked at me, her eyes filled with a desperate, shattered hope. "What do I do?"

"You run," I said. "You leave everything. You go to a place where they can't find you. You don't tell him where you're going, you don't use your cards, and you don't trust anyone who works for the company he’s associated with."

"I can't just leave," she cried. "My life is here!"

"Your life is a script," I corrected, my voice hard. "And the end of that script is a grave. You have forty-eight hours, Sarah. Use them to disappear."

I stood up and walked toward the door.

"Wait!" she called out. "Where are you going?"

"To finish this," I said, not looking back.

As I walked out into the Seattle rain, I felt a strange sense of liberation. I had saved one. There were still two more—the ones in Chicago. I had to reach them, too.

But as I reached the corner, I stopped. A black sedan was parked across the street. The driver was watching the coffee shop.

They weren't just hunting me anymore. They were hunting the list.

I pulled my phone out. I’d reactivated a secondary burner I’d kept in my bag. I dialed a number I’d memorized from the ledger—the private line of the man who had been the Syndicate’s lead broker.

"Volkov?" I asked when he answered.

There was a long silence on the other end.

"You're the replacement," he said, his voice cold.

"I'm the one who's going to burn your empire to the ground," I said.

"You're in Seattle, Maya. We see you."

"Good," I said, a smile creeping onto my lips. "Then come and get me."