412 No Escape 2

Thursday Night 

Katherine didn't have to ask Styles to understand what was going on seeing that he and Amelia were on a secret mission to infiltrate Park Group's main office building. As to why Amelia was doing this, she could only guess that she wanted to find evidence at Frederick's office. 

Katherine knew that Damien had already given instructions to lay low. And without backup, she was worried that Amelia might get in trouble. Sure, Amelia was one of the best Shadow agents and was very skillful, but this was Frederick Park she was going head to head against. They shouldn't be too lax about this whole thing.

There were notifications and beeping sounds on the monitors that caught Styles's attention. He immediately put the headphones on, ignoring her presence and started typing away, trying to bypass the security system. Katherine knew that once Styles was in the zone, he couldn't be disturbed as he would be very focused on the mission. 

Sighing, she went back to her bedroom and quickly changed into her black lightweight tactical outfit—pants, long sleeves, boots, and a black cap. She was ready in less than two minutes.

Contemplating whether she should bring a gun, she stared at her stash and ended up choosing the pair of "god of death" knuckle knives that she already loved before stalking back to Styles's bedroom. When she got in, he was still busy doing his thing.

"I'm borrowing these, Styles. Bye," she said as she grabbed a handheld monitor from the table next to him—it was wirelessly connected to his computer—and then she slipped out of the penthouse only to be stopped by Felix at the foyer.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Park Group. Amelia snuck in. I need to help her." Katherine didn't stop as she spoke and headed straight to the elevator.

Felix was still surprised at what was happening. He didn't even notice Amelia had left. How did that happen? "This is a bad idea," he muttered as he got in the elevator with her. They started to descend towards the basement parking.

"I can't just let her go alone. And you can't stop me."

"Damien will kill me," he said under gritted teeth.

"He'll slaughter you if something happens to his mom," Katherine teased, a faint smile forming on her lips as she alighted the elevator out to the basement.

As a former Navy seal, nothing should faze him—except at this moment, he was more anxious at the thought of Damien learning about this. Following Katherine to her red Lexus, he snatched the keys from her hands and got in the driver's seat. "At least let me drive."

They sped through the traffic and once they arrived at the back alley of Park Group's building, they found Katherine's motorcycle. She handed Felix an earpiece for their two-way communication system and the handheld monitoring device that she 'borrowed' from Styles. On the screen showed all the security feeds from Park Group.

"You took my tablet! Don't tell me you're already there," Styles's frantic voice was heard over the line. "You are…" he murmured right after and Katherine could only guess that he saw her location on his monitor.

"You expect me to let her go by herself?"

"She's already inside. She'll be out soon."

Katherine studied the feeds on the monitor and told him, "Men going up. She has to take the stairs. Styles, I have to go in. Tell her to take twelfth."

"Shît. I just saw it."

She passed the device to Felix who held her back before she could step out of the car. "You're not going in there, Katherine."

"The hell I'm not. Look at that, she's outnumbered. You stay here and be my eyes and ears." She quickly retracted her hand and shoved the device to his chest.

Felix was taken aback at how fast she moved. One second she was just in the car and soon, she had already slipped inside the building. "Fûck."

"Don't curse in my ear, Felix," Katherine whispered through the comms and he remembered that they were already connected. Without much choice, he could only help her by guiding her inside the building.

…

"Katherine?" Amelia was surprised to see her there. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm your backup. Now we have to get out of here. The place is crawling with security." Katherine peeked outside and saw two guards roaming and doing their rounds. They waited for their chance before they could get out of the utility room safely without getting detected.

Since Amelia lost connection with Styles, Katherine could only rely on Felix's guidance. They reached the stairwell and started going down. However, on the ninth floor, there were a few idle men and so they had to go back inside the building only to find the door to the tenth floor locked. 

Just then, Styles came through Amelia's earpiece again, "Falcon! Can you hear me? Shît I lost you earlier."

"I can hear you now. What do we do?" Amelia probed in a hushed tone while Katherine watched her.

"You can't go in the tenth, there are a dozen men as soon as you go out. Your only choice is to go down and take out the two at the landing." While Styles was back in giving directions, Felix was on standby. The latter was itching to go in but it might only complicate things more so he could only wait for the two women to come out.

Left with no choice, Katherine and Amelia exchanged looks and nodded. As soon as they descended the stairs and made their presence known, the men in the stairwell were alerted. 

"Who are you? You're not allowed here—"

"Hey boys~" Katherine muttered just before she leaped and skipped several steps, her knees were bent up and her feet were in the air before they hit one of the men's chest. The man stumbled backward and hit his head on the wall while she landed gracefully on the 9th floor's landing.

Meanwhile, Amelia didn't waste time and surprised the other who was still stunned by the sudden attack and gave him several blows on his upper and lower body. Soon, there were two unconscious men on the floor.

The two women continued heading down the stairwell. They had to face a few more men on their way but they were able to handle them just fine and knocked them out cold. It was the first time for them to work together actively like this but they were so synced with each other that it seemed as though they had been doing this for years.

Reaching the second floor, they had to cross the other side of the building again in order to pass through the same door that they used to enter inside. But before they could step out of the stairwell and into the main building, an alarm went off inside Park Group.

"Uh-oh, one of the guards alerted the rest. You need to get out of there fast or we're dead." Styles had his eyes fixed on the screen trying to bypass or stop the alarm from ringing at the same time that he was looking for a way to get Katherine and Amelia out of there. "They locked the south door. Oh, we're so dead."

Katherine and Amelia looked at each other. They were panting as they had to descend a flight of stairs and take out the security men at the same time. Now that they were locked inside, was there really no way out anymore?