“Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize my own dress, Soraya?” Odalys said, her voice soft as silk, deadly as a razor. The two hulking operatives shifted, their gazes fixed, their hands resting on the grips of their holstered stunners.
Soraya checked her balance, keeping her weight centered. Her hand instinctively dipped into the inner pocket of her stolen dress, finding the cheap, almost toy-like laser pointer she'd grabbed from Idris's desk, a forgotten prop from some corporate presentation. She pulled it out, thumbing the tiny button.
A pinprick of crimson light bloomed on Odalys’s forehead, directly between her perfectly sculpted brows. Odalys's serene expression faltered, her chin tilting down as her shoulders drew tight. The escorts, too, seemed to hesitate, their attention drawn to the impossible dot.
“Funny you should ask,” Soraya purred, a confident smile stretching her lips, though her pulse tapped hard beneath her ribs. She kept her voice even, letting the Vangkhon night market swagger she’d cultivated take over. “Because I was about to ask if you truly thought you could trap me without my *friends* noticing.” She tilted her head, a practiced insolence, her eyes holding Odalys’s. “That little red dot? That’s from a sniper scope, darling. Idris has eyes everywhere. And he’s rather protective of his… acquisitions.”
Idris, beside her, stood utterly still, a statue of controlled fury, his hand subtly moving to his wrist comm. His gaze never left Odalys, but Soraya felt the silent current of his understanding, his immediate grasp of her audacious lie. The red dot pulsed, unwavering, a tiny beacon of impending doom on Odalys’s face.
Odalys’s composure began to fray. Her gaze darted towards the ceiling, then back to the unwavering laser, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. “That’s absurd,” she hissed, but the certainty in her voice had thinned. The hired men exchanged uneasy glances. No one moved. The cloakroom, moments ago filled with the distant thrum of music, felt like a pressure cooker, the air thick and combustible.
A shrill, piercing wail tore through the strained silence. The fire alarm. Sirens blared, strobing red lights erupted across the ceiling, casting the opulent cloakroom in a violent, pulsating glow. Panic, a tangible thing, descended upon the gala beyond the door. Shouts and the clamor of a stampede replaced the elegant music.
Idris moved with a sudden, decisive fluidity, grabbing Soraya’s arm. “Let’s go,” he barked, pulling her towards a discreet service door usually reserved for staff. The squad, momentarily disoriented by the alarms and the growing chaos, were a beat too slow to react. Odalys shrieked, “Stop them!” but her voice was lost in the cacophony.
They burst into a utilitarian maintenance corridor, a stark contrast to the gala’s opulence. Bare concrete, exposed pipes, and the smell of industrial cleaner filled the air. The alarms screamed, a relentless, punishing sound. Idris didn't slow, dragging Soraya along, his strides long and powerful. She stumbled once, but his grip was iron.
They rounded a sharp turn, skidding to a halt, nearly colliding with a figure struggling with an overloaded pantry trolley. It was Mateo. He was wearing a ridiculously ill-fitting suit jacket over his usual clothes, his face rigid with righteous indignation. He looked as out of place in the sterile corridor as a tropical bird in a snowstorm.
“Mateo?” Soraya gasped, momentarily forgetting the chaos, the pursuit.
He glared at them, shoving a tray of half-eaten pastries at the wall. “You! Rich idiots! You owe me a liquor license! You think I just sit around in Vangkhon while my friends get themselves chased by goons in fancy dresses?” He slapped a hand against the trolley. “I used my entire bar fund to get here! My *entire* bar fund! And for what? So I could sneak in here and find you two causing a fire scare?”
“Mateo, now is not the time,” Idris ground out, his eyes scanning the corridor behind them. Footsteps pounded, growing closer. “We need a way out.”
“Out?” Mateo scoffed, gesturing wildly past the silver platters at what was, in fact, a small, battery-driven delivery van, perfectly sized for tight freight tunnels. “I was just about to deliver a special order of ‘escape snacks’ to the loading dock. Lucky for you, these Galtier fancy boys don’t check ID for the kitchen staff.” He hopped into the driver’s seat, revving the tiny engine. “Get in, before I leave you to the laser-pointer-faced lady.”
Soraya scrambled into the passenger seat, Idris barely fitting into the back amongst the empty champagne bottles and discarded canapés. Mateo slammed the pedal. The delivery cart lurched forward, surprisingly fast, bouncing off the pristine white walls of the service tunnel. Alarms still wailed, but the sound was muffled by the enclosed space.
“You brought a laser pointer?” Idris yelled over the engine’s whine, his voice laced with a mixture of exasperation and grudging admiration.
“It was in your office, Idris! What was I supposed to do, *reason* with her?” Soraya shot back, twisting in her seat to look at him. “It worked, didn’t it? She looked like she’d seen a ghost!”
“A ghost with a very small, red mole,” Idris muttered, dodging a low-hanging pipe as Mateo swerved violently. “And now we’re in an utility cart being driven by a man who thinks ‘liquor license’ is a valid excuse for international travel.”
“It is when you’re dealing with *your* kind of trouble!” Mateo shouted from the front, taking a bend on two wheels. “These Galtier types, they don’t respect small business! They just freeze accounts and frame people!”
“Don’t you dare try to pin *this* on me, Vandemar!” Soraya retorted, gripping the dashboard as Mateo nearly sideswiped a cleaning bot. “You’re the one who declared war on the Belrose dynasty!”
“You think I wanted a war, Belrose? I wanted quiet nights by the river with a decent cup of coffee and no corporate espionage!”
“Oh, poor Idris! The big bad CEO, forced to save a damsel in distress from her own family!” Soraya rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at the edge of her mouth. The absurdity of it all, the bickering, the sheer chaos, was a strange comfort. It felt… normal, in the most abnormal way possible.
“Damsel in distress?” Idris scoffed, a rare, genuine laugh escaping him. “You threatened Odalys with a fake sniper. You’re more like a… a rogue operative with a penchant for dramatic flair.”
“Compliment accepted,” she said, grinning. “Now, can we focus on not getting caught by the *actual* security who are probably chasing us right now?”
As if on cue, the distant wail of a security cruiser’s siren cut through the night, growing louder. Mateo glanced in the rearview mirror. “They’re tenacious, these rich idiots,” he grumbled, pushing the van faster towards the loading bay exit. They broke free onto the chaotic night streets of Galtier, the tiny vehicle weaving expertly through traffic, leaving the blaring sirens behind.
Hours later, safe back in Idris’s secure apartment, the adrenaline had begun to recede, leaving a thrumming exhaustion in its wake. Mateo, having secured a promise of a 'Vandemar-sponsored liquor license, fully reimbursed, with interest,' had curled up on a sofa, fast asleep, snoring softly.
Soraya and Idris stood over a sleek, encrypted data drive, the biometric key stolen from Odalys resting on its surface. Idris activated the scanner. A low whirring sound, a soft click, and the screen flashed to life. A single line of crimson text appeared, bold and stark against the dark background. Below it, a number, counting down with terrifying speed.
`Wipe initiated.`
`60`