“Mr.

Vance,” Harrison stammered, his knees buckling.

“You’re conscious, you’re—” And then the double doors of the suite slammed open, and the room filled, all at once, with what I had been waiting for.

Marcus Sterling came through first, and behind him four men in tactical gear, moving fast and controlled, weapons ready but the situation already won, because there was nothing left to fight; the murderers were caught, red-handed, on tape, with a live man where a corpse should have been.

And behind them, in the doorway, stood Elena Miller, holding the recording device that had been feeding every word, every whisper, every clink of the syringe case, to a secure server for the past twenty minutes.