I had faith that Lingyi would have sent one of our friends to find me, but whether I would be found in time was a different matter. Switching tactics, I tried smaller movements, testing the ropes, attempting to ease any kind of give along my wrists. I still had a knife tucked against my upper thigh, but it might as well have been on the moon.

A sudden loud popping noise, and the metal doorknob clattered onto the concrete. Yellow light filtered in from the fist-size hole. Hope surged in my chest. Was it Arun? Victor and Iris would be detonating the bombs. The door pushed open, flooding the chamber with dingy light, and the figure that stood against its glow was immediately recognizable to me, even though she was in suit.

Daiyu.

I blinked hard, shaking my head, almost believing it was a hallucination. But she flicked on the lights and her confident stride dispelled any doubt. Tucking her gun away in the holster strapped at her waist, she crouched down. Her touch was light against my shoulder. Gently, she removed the rag from my mouth. I drew a long, shuddering breath.

Her hand hovered above my swollen cheek. “I can’t believe they did this to you,” she said. Her helmet was half-tinted, but I could still catch the hard glint of her eyes.

“Daiyu.” My throat was raw, and the word came as a croak. “What are you doing here?”

She slipped behind me, working on the rope that bound my hands first. “My father returned from abroad today, sooner than expected. I track his whereabouts through his Vox, which he always wears. He arrived at Jin Corp when I was about to leave my internship for the day,” she said in a low voice.

The rope loosened slightly, and sensation flooded back into my arms, tingling my hands—painful but wonderful. I flexed my fingers and for a moment, I felt Daiyu grasping them before the rope slid off. Shaking my arms out, I rubbed my shoulder joint, wincing.

She crouched back down at my feet in front of me, unknotting the rope binding my ankles. “I avoided running into him but was curious when he headed away from the elevators that led to his office. I became even more curious when I saw Da Ge join him.”

I imagined Daiyu sneaking around, tailing her father, but making it look as though she had every right to be where she was—because she was Jin’s daughter.