"Dammit Ben, stay still!"
Eleni pressed the wet cloth hard against Benson's bare shoulder. The crackling of the fireplace was the only sound inside the cabin, cutting through the low howl of the wind outside. Athens lay below them like a sea of distant stars, but to Eleni, those lights weren't beautiful anymore. They were a map of people who wanted them dead.
Ben winced, his face contorting in pain, but that annoying, persistent smirk was already crawling back onto his lips. "You could be a bit more gentle, Eleni. Treating the man who just saved your life like a piece of raw meat isn't exactly great hospitality."
"Saved my life?" Eleni rolled her eyes, pressing the cloth even harder. "My life was perfectly fine, Ben! I had flowers, I had bills, I had a roof that only leaked when it felt like it. At least no one was raining bullets on my head! Now I'm stuck on a mountain with a silver drive that holds half the city's dirty secrets, and a moron who tries to be funny while he's bleeding out."
Ben's hand shot out, his fingers catching Eleni's wrist. He wasn't joking anymore. His eyes went dark, reflecting the dying embers of the fire. "I'm not bleeding out. And that drive... it's not just secrets. It's our ticket. It's the only way you, Mia, and Leo ever get to breathe without looking over your shoulder again."
Eleni slowly pulled her wrist back. The heat of his skin lingered on hers. "I didn't need a ticket, Ben. I just needed a life."
A heavy silence settled in the room. Eleni closed the first-aid kit and stood up, her knees popping from the tension. She walked over to the small kitchen area and grabbed the old copper pot. "Do you want coffee? Fair warning, it's going to be terrible."
"Like everything else you make?" Ben groaned, trying to find a comfortable position on the worn leather sofa. "Bring it over. Maybe the bitterness will make me forget the hole in my shoulder."
As she waited for the water to boil, Eleni stared at the silver drive sitting on the wooden table. It was so small, yet it carried enough weight to crush everyone she knew. "So, what's the plan? Who do we give this to? The police?"
Ben let out a short, dry laugh that turned into a cough. "The police? Eleni, half the names on that list are the police. The other half are the people who pay their salaries. If you walk into a precinct with that, we'll be buried in a shallow grave before you can even ask for a lawyer."
"Then what?"
"Leverage," Ben said, his eyes narrowing. "We make Silas a deal. We delete the data, and in exchange, he gives us freedom. A clean slate. Money to start over far away from here."
Eleni brought the mug over and sat across from him. "And why should I trust you? Or him? What's stopping him from just killing us the moment he gets what he wants?"
"You shouldn't trust me," Ben said, taking a sip of the coffee and immediately grimacing. "Seriously... how do you do it? How do you make coffee taste like boiled dirt? Is it a gift?"
"Don't change the subject, Benson!"
"Fine, fine... Silas won't trust me, and I don't trust him. But he's a businessman. He calculates risks. The exposure of that list would turn his empire into ash overnight. He won't take that risk if he thinks there's a chance it's been copied."
Eleni was about to argue when she heard it. A faint sound. The crunch of gravel under a tire, far down the path but echoing in the still mountain air.
She froze. "Did you hear that?"
Ben was moving before she could finish the sentence. His hand went under the coffee table, coming back up with his black handgun. "Kill the lights. Now!"
Eleni lunged for the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Only the faint orange glow of the fireplace remained. Ben rolled off the sofa, ignored the groan of pain from his shoulder, and pressed himself against the wall by the window.
"Did they find the van?" Eleni whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"No, the van is two miles away on the other slope," Ben hissed, peering through the blinds. "But that luxury car we took from the gala... it must have had a secondary tracker. I should have known."
The sound of a car door closing drifted in. Then another.
"Eleni, get to the back room. Lock the door and stay with Mia and Leo," Ben ordered, his voice turning into that cold, lethal instrument she had grown to fear—and rely on. "Don't come out until I say so. No matter what you hear."
"I can't leave you here! You can't even stand up straight!"
Ben turned his head, his profile sharp in the shadows. "Eleni, if they get through that door, your 'Cousin Sebastian' isn't going to be very polite. Go. Protect the kids."
Eleni ducked into the back room. Mia was mumbling in her sleep, oblivious. Eleni locked the door and slid down to the floor, her back against the wood, her hands over her ears.
The silence lasted for a minute. Then came the sound of breaking glass.
Then, hell broke loose.
Gunshots shattered the peace of the mountain, echoing through the cabin like thunder. Eleni squeezed her eyes shut, praying to a God she hadn't spoken to in years. She realized, with a jolt of terror, that she didn't want to hear silence. She wanted to hear Ben's annoying voice, his arrogant jokes—anything but the sound of him dying.
The fighting was short. Violent. Then, silence returned.
Eleni waited, her hand trembling as she reached for the handle. "Ben? Are you there?"
No answer.
She pushed the door open. The main room was filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder and smoke. In the dying light of the fire, she saw a body on the floor. Her heart stopped. She ran forward, tripping over a chair.
The man on the floor was one of Silas's men. Ben was slumped against the wall by the window, his pistol still in his hand, his breathing heavy and jagged. His bandage was soaked through with fresh, bright red blood.
"Still here, flower girl," Ben rasped, a weak smile tugging at his lips. "But I think we're out of coffee."
Eleni knelt beside him, her hands searching for the wound. "We have to go. There will be more of them."
"They won't come," Ben said, holding up the silver drive. "I just sent an encrypted, time-locked copy of this list to Silas's biggest rival. If I don't punch in a code every hour, the whole world gets to see Silas's taxes. My life is now his most valuable asset."
Eleni stared at him, a mix of horror and admiration. "You really are the devil, aren't you?"
"Maybe," Ben said, leaning his head back. "Now help me up, 'Cousin'. We have a long night ahead of us."
As Eleni pulled his arm over her shoulder, she realized something. The florist who was afraid of her own shadow was gone. She was part of the game now.