My voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried the heavy weight of three years spent rotting in a concrete cage. I pushed past her threshold, the cheap canvas of my duffel bag scraping against the new, brutally expensive hardwood of the foyer.

The rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick, choking fog that clung to the asphalt like a shroud. The gleaming charcoal-grey facade of Mendoza Enterprises loomed against the dark sky, cutting an imposing, arrogant silhouette.

True to Mateo’s warning, two armed guards in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles paced the front entrance, their assault rifles slung casually across their chests.

I didn't go near the front.

I slipped down the narrow, forgotten alleyway behind the building, half a block away from the main security sweep. There, half-buried under a pile of discarded commercial trash bins, was the heavy iron maintenance grate.

I dropped to my knees, ignoring the foul-smelling sludge soaking into the knees of my jeans. I jammed Mateo’s heavy iron key into the rusted padlock. It resisted at first, screaming in protest against the salt air and neglect. With a silent prayer and a violent twist of my wrists, the internal mechanism snapped.

The padlock fell away with a dull clunk.

I lifted the heavy iron grate. A wave of suffocating, hot, putrid air rushed up from the dark abyss below, carrying the metallic tang of rust and stagnant water.

I clicked on the tactical flashlight, illuminating a steep, vertical ladder bolted directly into the slick concrete wall of the drainage shaft.

I didn't hesitate. I swung my legs over the edge and began to climb down into the dark.

The descent felt like sinking into the underworld. The ladder rungs were slick with slime, and every breath burned my lungs with toxic humidity. After dropping roughly thirty feet, my boots hit shallow, freezing water.

I clicked off the flashlight, relying entirely on the faint amber glow of my tactical instincts. According to Mateo's map, I needed to crawl two hundred yards north through the main stormwater conduit until I reached the sub-basement foundation wall of the corporate headquarters.

The water rose to my waist as I waded forward, bent double in the cramped, circular concrete tube. Rats scuttled frantically past my legs, splashing through the filth. The walls echoed with the distant, rhythmic hum of the building's massive HVAC generators overhead, vibrating through the earth like a mechanical heartbeat.

Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes of agonizing, gut-wrenching crawling through the dark underbelly of the city until my fingers finally scraped against cold, modern poured concrete instead of crumbling 1980s brick.

I reached the end of the conduit.

Blocking my path was a heavy, square steel access hatch, bolted from the inside—or rather, bolted from the other side.

I pressed my ear against the cold metal.

Faintly, underneath the constant roar of the generators, I heard it. A ragged, whistling gasp for air. Followed by a weak, dry cough that sounded like dry leaves scraping across pavement.

Dad.

Adrenaline surged through my veins, washing away the exhaustion, the cold, and the filth. I dropped my duffel bag into the water, reached up, and gripped the edges of the steel hatch with my bare hands.

I braced my boots against the concrete sides of the conduit, gritting my teeth until my jaw muscles screamed, and pulled with every ounce of pent-up rage, fury, and love I had stored inside me for five long years.

Crack.