After my husband k!cked me out of the house, I became a cleaner at his own company. But one night, his secretary grabbed my arm and whispered: "Hide under the desk. You need to hear this." I stayed silent with my phone in my hand… and what I heard about 28 million dollars turned my divorce into something far more dangerous.

"Get out! Get out now!"

Megan shoved her desk chair aside, grabbing Emily by the collar of her denim shirt and dragging her out from beneath the mahogany counter.

Emily stood up on numb, trembling legs. Her heart was beating so violently against her ribs she felt sick to her stomach.

"He called the police, Megan," Emily choked out, her mind spinning in terrifying circles. "They’re downstairs. The lobby is locked. He put two million dollars in my bank account..."

"Listen to me!" Megan grabbed Emily by both shoulders, shaking her hard. "They aren't going to arrest you, Mrs. Emily. Do you understand? They aren't going to take you to a police station!"

Emily blinked through her tears. "What?"

Megan reached into her skirt pocket, pulled out a encrypted silver USB drive, and shoved it into Emily’s hand.

"Julian Mercer doesn't leave loose ends," Megan whispered frantically, her eyes darting toward the emergency stairwell door. "The police Blake called aren't NYPD patrol officers. They are off-duty precinct detectives on Julian’s personal payroll. The moment they put you in the back of that squad car, you aren't going to a central booking facility in Lower Manhattan. You are going to a holding facility in New Jersey... and you will never make it to your arraignment hearing."

A sudden, sharp metallic CLANG echoed from the freight elevator shaft at the end of the hall. The indicator light above the door flashed from red to green.

Someone was coming up.

"Where do I go?" Emily whispered, her hand closing tightly around the silver USB drive. "The building is locked!"

"The linen chute in the supply closet," Megan said, pushing Emily down the secondary corridor toward the service quarters. "It drops straight down to the basement laundry facility on Sub-Level Three. It’s dirty, it’s forty feet down, but it bypasses the lobby security gates entirely."

"Megan, come with me—"

"I can't!" Megan cried, tears spilling over her cheeks. "If I run, they’ll know I warned you! Go! Now!"

Emily didn't hesitate any longer. Driven by a primal, surge of survival instinct, she sprinting down the narrow concrete service hallway, threw open the heavy metal door of the janitorial supply closet, and slammed the bolt shut behind her.

The room was cramped, smelling of sour mops and industrial ammonia. On the back wall sat a rusted, square steel hatch marked: CAUTION: LAUNDRY CHUTE - DIRECT DROP.

She pulled the heavy iron handle. The hatch creaked open, revealing a dark, vertical steel shaft plunging down into pitch blackness.

From the main corridor outside, she heard the heavy impact of combat boots hitting the marble floor, followed by Blake’s loud, commanding voice.

"Search every room! She’s still on this floor! Check the supply closets!"

Emily took a deep, ragged breath, shoved her phone and the USB drive deep into the inner pocket of her trousers, pulled her arms tight against her chest, and swung her legs into the steel opening.

She let go.

The world dissolved into a terrifying, deafening roar of rushing air and screeching metal.

She slammed against the corrugated steel walls of the shaft, her elbows and knees smashing violently into the rivets as she free-fell through sixty feet of darkness. The friction burned through her cotton trousers, searing her skin.

Three seconds later, she crashed through a heavy canvas chute curtain and landed with a bone-jarring impact on a six-foot-high mountain of wet, dirty industrial mops and soiled hotel linens on Sub-Level Three.

The air exploded from her lungs in a sharp gasp. She lay stunned on the damp fabric, her head spinning, every bone in her upper body screaming in blinding pain.

Above her, far up the narrow steel shaft, she could hear the faint, echoing sound of shouting voices.

Emily forced herself to roll off the linen pile, falling onto the cold, wet concrete floor of the basement laundry room. She bit her lip so hard she tasted copper to suppress a groan of agony.

She pulled her phone from her pocket. The screen was spider-webbed with cracks, but the green display was still functional.

She had three unread text messages from an unknown, blocked number.

The first message had arrived four minutes ago, while she was still hiding under Blake’s desk.

Text 1: "Do not go out the main entrance. Julian’s men are waiting in the black Ford Explorer at the corner of 47th."

Text 2: "Go through the boiler room door on the west wall. Use code 8842."

Emily stared at the glowing screen, her chest heaving.