Back in Syria, I'd learned to trust my gut. That instinct had got me out of trouble on more occasions than I could count, and tonight, I chalked up another point to intuition. I felt rather than heard the person behind me rushing forward while I vacuumed.

He grabbed my legs and lifted me effortlessly, and as I flew over the balcony, I saw Arthur's startled face looking up at me from three floors below. But that split second of warning gave me enough time to grab the railing, and rather than falling to my death, I swung myself under the balcony in an arc, landing heavily on the floor below. My ankle buckled on impact, but I gritted my teeth against the pain, and then the adrenaline rush hit. Run, Rania. I had to get out of the building. In the dark, I could disappear.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs as I raced for the door at the far end of the corridor, fumbling with my swipe card. My assailant knew his plan had failed, and he wasn't giving up.

"Is something wrong?" Helene asked. "Why are you running?"

The door lock beeped at me, and the light flashed red. Why wouldn't it open? A black-clad figure appeared behind me at the end of the hallway, shadowy and sinister, a man wearing a scarf across his face and a hood that left his eyes in darkness. He advanced slowly, taking his time as if he was enjoying my predicament.

"You can't escape." His voice came as a harsh whisper. "I've revoked your privileges. This new security system's so versatile, don't you think?"

Shit, shit, shit.

Now what?

One of the newly installed panic buttons flashed to my left, and I allowed myself a small flicker of hope as I hit it. Silence. Shouldn't there be an alarm or something?

"I disarmed those too."

Great—a tech-savvy killer. My pulse raced almost out of control as I dashed left into the executive office suite, now shrouded in darkness. For one frozen moment, a millisecond between heartbeats, I thought how strange it was that I should be so scared. I used to face worse on a daily basis, and I'd once been dulled to the fear, but four years of safety had acted like a reset button for my resilience. A decade spent learning to fight and kill had been softened by mornings playing with Aisling and afternoons in front of the TV.

For the first time since I arrived in England, I regretted my transformation, but I didn't have time to lament.

Should I hide? No, he'd find me within minutes, most likely by listening for my pounding heart. I ran past Mr. Weston's office, past Helene's, and into Anthony's in the far corner. The window. I could go out the window. I choked back a strangled laugh as I realised I was making a habit of that.

Fumbling for the catch took precious seconds I didn't have, but I finally thumbed it free and gripped the handle. Why wouldn't it open? I tugged harder, but a voice from the doorway interrupted my efforts.

"Having trouble? The decorators painted that one shut years ago, but Anthony didn't care. He likes it stuffy."

The rough voice made me shudder. Why bother disguising it when he planned to kill me? Just an extra precaution? I squinted, but all I could make out was his silhouette backlit by the light from the hallway.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because your boyfriend just can't stop raking over the past."

The past? So this was Arthur's killer rather than Helene's? Still, I played dumb.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, I believe you do. I tried to refocus his efforts to no avail, then I thought the fire would distract you both from any extraneous activities. But he's dedicated, isn't he? The perfect man to find Helene's murderer if he could only keep his mind on the job. Still, let's see how young Mr. Lawson copes with the death of his girlfriend."

Refocus? Young Mr. Lawson? That meant Arthur's killer was an older man. All these little clues. If only I could stay alive for long enough to pass them on to Will.

"How do you plan on making that happen?"

"I'd hoped to do things the clean way, but I hadn't bargained on you being an acrobat. So, it looks like we'll have to get messy." He shrugged. "Sometimes, these things can't be helped."

Moonlight glinted off the blade in his hand as he switched it to a better position. Oh, hell. I backed away until my ass hit Anthony's desk, and still the Grim Reaper kept coming. Why had I sent Will away? With both of us here, we might have stood a chance.

Tick, tick, tick.

Now we were in a standoff. Who would move first?

The man lunged, and finally, finally, the old Rania made a reappearance. Years of my mother's training took over as I did the only thing possible—ducked and grabbed Anthony's vodka bottle, smashed it on the edge of the desk, and rammed the jagged end into my attacker's neck with the full force of my fear and anger behind it.

His howl of anguish suggested I'd hit my target, and warm blood spurted over me as he dropped the knife and clutched at his wound. Acting on instinct once more, I kicked his legs out from underneath him and shoved him to the floor.

"You...you bitch!"

The voice sounded kind of familiar now, but I couldn't quite place it.

"You only got what you deserved."

The metallic tang of blood filled the air, and when I moved my feet, they squelched in the puddle spreading across the floor. Seemed I'd hit an artery. The man's breathing grew laboured, and I knew from experience he didn't have long left.

And neither did Arthur.

I scrambled away from the dying and ran for the dead, almost tripping in my haste to get downstairs. Arthur was already beginning to fade, but his eyes widened as I skidded to a halt in front of him.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"Did you not see the person throw me over the damn balcony?"

"Yes, but you didn't go splat. How did you save yourself? Where did all the blood come from?"

"We don't have time for questions. Just know that I've bloody done it. The man who killed you has about thirty seconds left on this earth, and so do you. Which means you owe me a name."

"Who was it? Who was the bastard that killed me?"

"No idea. He was wearing a mask, and I didn't stop to check. Funnily enough, I had another priority."

"But I want to know."

Arthur grew fainter. The stairs behind him showed quite clearly now, but the frustration of dealing with him hadn't lessened at all.

"Arthur, give me the name. You promised!"

His lips pursed into a thin line that blurred as I watched, and I knew the man upstairs only had seconds to live. Was he suffering? I hoped so after what he'd done to Arthur and then tried to do to me.

"I suppose you did keep your end of the bargain, more or less," Arthur conceded.

More or less? I'd fucking freed him.

"Arthur..."

"I don't actually know her name."

Her name? "A woman killed Helene?"

"Blonde, comes every Monday evening with one of those camping mats rolled up under her arm. You know, like they use in tents."

Camping mat... A yoga mat? "Do you mean the yoga teacher?"

"Probably. Always wears tight trousers. Anyhow, after Helene died, she came downstairs covered in blood, even in her hair, and—"

He left.

Arthur disappeared, and I sank to my knees in the spot where he'd rested for the past twelve years, breathing hard. It was over. Arthur was dead, I was alive, and one more black soul had been banished. I should have felt relieved, happy even, but instead I gulped back tears. My life in England was supposed to have been a fresh start, away from blood and death, but war had followed me here to this elegant office building and made me fight again. And I was so, so sick of fighting.

Hammering at the door startled me, and I clutched at my chest as my heart lurched and sputtered.

"Rania! Are you there?"

Will! I used the bannister to pull myself to my feet and staggered towards reception as he yelled again.

"Nia, can you hear me?"

Too late, I remembered my security pass didn't work anymore, and the light beside the front door flashed red. Through the glass, Will's expression turned from fear to relief to horror as he took in the blood dripping down my front.

"Get back," he shouted.

"Why?" I mouthed, but I did as he asked.

Before I could stop him, he'd hurled one of the fancy flower pots that bordered the path through the window, then kicked the last few broken shards out of the frame so he could climb through. And he wasn't alone.

"Aiden?"

Will ran his hands over me, probing for damage, frantic.

"It's not mine," I said. "The blood. It's not mine."

"Whose is it?"

"I don't know, but he tried to kill me and now he's dead. It was the man who killed Arthur."

"Lloyd Weston."

"What?"

My hands flew to my mouth, and I stopped them an inch away, bile rising into my throat at the sight of the sticky red stains still covering them.

"I'm ninety percent sure Lloyd Weston killed Arthur. Where is he?"

"In Anthony's office."

Will tucked his arm around my waist without a care about the mess while Aiden took off ahead of us at a jog.

"Why is he here?" I whispered to Will.

"He offered to help. I'm almost certain he didn't kill Helene. RJ's checking his alibi at the moment."

"No, he didn't. That was the yoga teacher. Arthur told me."

Will stopped dead, frozen into a statue. "Geri? Blonde hair, bubbly?"

"Apparently so. Although I've got no idea why. Helene's never mentioned falling out with her, or even knowing her at all."

"Possibly something to do with the fact that Geri was sleeping with Derek."

Holy shit. "Are you sure? How did you find that out?"

"Aiden saw them together."

Why did I get the impression I was missing an awful lot of pieces of this jigsaw? Aiden, Lloyd Weston, Geri... Nobody was who I thought they were.

Will helped me upstairs, and on the landing, my heels dragged. The last thing I wanted to do was revisit the scene of my desperate battle. But I didn't need to. Aiden popped out of the door to the executive suite before we could get there, face ashen, and I ground to a halt completely.

"You were right," he said to Will. "It was Lloyd Weston. The old bastard's finally shuffled off this mortal coil."

Helene's wail almost perforated my eardrums. Oh, shit. Aiden looked at me funny as I clapped my hands over my ears and sagged against Will. Now what? With Aiden there, I couldn't even offer words of comfort, and Helene wouldn't stop screaming.

"My father? You killed my father? Was that what you were doing in there?"

I backed away, and my stomach lost the battle with my head as I deposited lunch on the stripy blue carpet. Well, one thing was for sure—I wouldn't be cleaning it up.

I quit.

I bloody quit.

"I'll call the police," Will muttered, gripping me tighter. His glance at Helene's spot said he knew exactly what was happening. "Aiden, can you let them in while I sit Rania down? I think she's going into shock."

"Sure thing, buddy." Aiden backed away, and he didn't look all that comfortable either. "There's a sofa in the meeting room at the top of the stairs."

Once he'd gone, Will gathered me up in his arms. "I'm so sorry I left you here, beautiful. If I'd realised sooner..."

"It's not your fault. None of this is your fault." Helene's wails turned to sobs, and I stepped forward again. "Helene, I didn't mean to hurt your father. Honestly, I didn't even realise who he was. But he came at me with a knife, and I didn't have any choice but to fight back."

"Why? Why would he try to stab you?"

Will's turn to speak. "Because twelve years ago, he bribed a member of the Mongolian government to get a contract, and he killed a man to hide what he did. Now that his little scheme had begun unravelling, he just kept digging that hole deeper."

Interestingly, she didn't try to deny it. Perhaps she knew what her father was capable of?

"What's Aiden doing here?"

I relayed the question to Will.

"He helped me to put the clues together," he said. "Oh, and we know who killed you too. Did you have any problems with Geri the yoga teacher?"

All I got from Helene was puzzlement. "The yoga teacher? Are you kidding? I stopped taking her classes because I didn't get on with the holistic mumbo jumbo, but Derek said she didn't seem bothered when I stopped turning up. You're serious? That perky little bitch gouged my eyes out?"

"It looks that way."

For a moment, Helene could only sputter. "That... That... What was it? Envy?"

I nodded because I trusted Will's judgement. If he said Geri and Derek had been having an affair, then it was true, no matter what Helene thought. Geri had been jealous over Derek, and no doubt envious of Helene's appearance too.

"We think so."

Helene's face crumpled, and she'd have cried if she'd been able to. "I can't believe this. A month ago, I had a good job, and my family, and Aiden, and now I've got nothing. I'm nothing. And I'm stuck here, aren't I? Stuck here for good."

"I'm sorry."

She turned her back on me, and her shoulders shook as she sniffled. "Just leave me alone."