Marcus stepped over the splintered wood of the broken door, his polished shoes crunching on the glass. His eyes brushed past me with utter disdain before settling on Evelyn.
“You always were too smart for your own good, Evelyn,” Marcus said smoothly, raising his gun. “If you had just stayed in your lane and mourned your father like a good daughter, you would have inherited a fortune. Now you get to join him.”
Evelyn stood up slowly, stepping slightly in front of me. “You murdered my father, Marcus. You turned his life’s work into a death sentence for innocent patients.”
“Business is business,” Marcus replied coldly. “The technology was failing. The payouts from the liability insurance will fund our next three medical acquisitions. It’s simple arithmetic. Now, hand over the flash drive.”
I felt the heavy iron wrench still tucked into the back waistband of my jeans. Marcus was confident, surrounded by four heavily armed mercenaries who assumed a broke delivery driver was no threat. That overconfidence was their only weakness.
“She doesn’t have it,” I said, stepping out from behind Evelyn.
Marcus sneered. “What did you say, kid?”
“She doesn’t have the drive,” I repeated, holding up my empty hands. “While you were busy making your supervillain speech outside, she uploaded every byte of data on that drive to the FBI’s public tip portal and broadcasted the decryption keys to every major news network in Manhattan.”
Marcus’s smile vanished instantly. “You’re lying.”
“Check your phone,” I said calmly.
Right on cue, all five of their phones began buzzing simultaneously with urgent alert tones. Marcus whipped out his phone, his face draining of all color as headlines began flashing across the screen: Vance BioTech Corruption Exposed: Federal Warrants Issued for Board Members.
“Kill them!” Marcus screamed, his composure shattering instantly.
Before his guards could raise their weapons, I grabbed a heavy fire extinguisher off the wall and smashed the nozzle. A dense cloud of white chemical powder exploded into the garage, blinding the men and causing them to cough hysterically.
“Go! Out the side door!” I yelled, grabbing Evelyn’s arm.
We scrambled through the cloud of smoke toward the side exit. One guard fired blindly into the haze, the bullet ricocheting off a steel beam above our heads. I kicked open the rusty side door, and we burst into the alley just as police sirens echoed from every direction down the street.
Marcus stumbled out behind us, his gun raised, his eyes wild with rage. “You ruined everything!” he roared, pointing the barrel directly at my chest.
A sharp loud noise split the air, but it wasn’t Marcus’s gun. A sleek black tactical vehicle turned the corner, crashing directly into the dumpster beside Marcus and pinning him against the wall. Federal agents swarmed the alley with rifles drawn.
“Drop your weapon! Hands behind your head now!” an officer shouted through a megawatt bullhorn.
Marcus dropped the gun, his arms trembling as the agents wrestled him to the ground and slapped heavy steel cuffs onto his wrists. He glared at us with pure venom as he was dragged away, but Evelyn didn’t even look back at him.
The rain finally began to ease, leaving the pavement glistening beneath the streetlights. Emergency vehicles filled the avenue, flashing red and blue lights across the surrounding buildings. Federal agents approached us with blankets, taking our statements as paramedics checked us over.
Evelyn sat beside me on the back bumper of an ambulance, wrapped in a warm wool blanket, sipping hot coffee from a paper cup. The high-society heiress looked entirely different now—her designer clothes were ruined, her hair was damp and disheveled, but her eyes were clearer and more determined than ever before.
“The board has already been taken into custody,” she said softly, looking down at her hands. “The recall command was canceled. Everyone who had those implants is safe now.”
“That’s all that matters,” I said, wringing out the hem of my soaked hoodie.
She looked over at me, her expression soft and genuinely grateful. “You could have run away at the diner, Leo. You had no reason to risk your life for someone you didn’t know.”
“Where I come from, you don’t walk away when someone needs help,” I smiled faintly. “Besides, my delivery schedule was already ruined anyway.”
Evelyn laughed—a genuine, warm sound that seemed to chase away the chill of the night. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small leather notebook, writing down a private phone number before tearing out the page and placing it in my hand.
“Vance BioTech is going to need an entirely new board of directors,” she said, looking straight into my eyes. “And more importantly, I need someone by my side who actually cares about doing the right thing. Come to my office on Monday.”
I looked down at the slip of paper in my palm, then up at the flashing lights of the city that felt a little less intimidating now. The delivery job was over, but something far bigger was just beginning.
