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Rio spins halfway back, fury sparking fresh. I catch his shoulder and shove him toward the door.

“We’re done,” I repeat.

He stumbles forward, then marches through the metal-paneled exit with a final glare over his shoulder.

The door hisses shut behind us.

The corridor outside feels tighter than before. The air sits wrong in my lungs.

Rio paces ahead of me now, strides long, shoulders bunched. His hand stays on the gun. His other hand digs into his pocket, drags out his cell. The Italian number flashes again on the screen.

He hits Reject and stuffs the device away.

“She’s lying,” he growls. “You saw her face.”

“Yes,” I answer.

“Without any guilt.”

“Morales doesn’t do guilt.”

“She’s lying,” he repeats, louder.

“I know.”

“Then why the fuck–”

“Because we still don’t know where Lana is,” I snap. “The cameras might give us more. We go upstairs. Check the alley. See if Morales’ story matches anything. Then we decide how long she gets to live.”

Rio throws his head back and exhales a curse at the ceiling. His throat works. The tendons in his neck strain.

“You want to bet on that bitch’s word?” he demands.

“I want to bet on facts. Not feelings.”

He barks out something between agreement and fury and stalks down the corridor. I follow, my own pulse pounding harder with every step.

We reach the landing, push through, and cross the back corridor again, behind the Black Chamber. Staff voices murmur in the background, busy with clean-up, re-set, getting ready.

We take the stairs two at a time, climbing up toward the office level. My legs burn. My head pounds. I feel the weight of every floor between us and the street.

Rio doesn’t stop moving. He is kinetic fury. He hits the door of the office so hard it bounces off the stopper and slams into the wall.

The large desk stands in the center, the monitors still with the image of Lana on it.

I cross to the bank of controls below the screens on the wall and bring up the rear exit view. A rectangle of brick, a metal door, a stretch of alley running between our building and the neighboring ones, opening onto the side street. And a couple of dumpsters.

I rewind the feed to the time code where we saw Lana enter the elevator with Morales.

Next to me, Rio stops moving.

“All right,” I say quietly. “Let’s see who lies.”

I let the footage roll.

The alley remains empty at first. A smear of rain on the lens from an earlier shower.

Then a delivery van pulls up, white paint streaked with dirt. Time stamp, ten minutes after Morales took Lana downstairs. The driver hops out, young, bored, hoodie up. He drags two crates toward the back door, presses the buzzer. One of our staff opens, checks the manifest, waves him in. The door swings open for several seconds, then shuts again.