These functions were invariably tedious. Tonight's, however, was interminable. For he had determined this would be the night. The night when his weeks of grooming, of preparation—of anticipation—came to fruition.

The girl was ready. Her fear was a palpable thing, leavened to a ripe perfection with the hint of impossible hope his patience and guile had engendered. The prospect of at last harvesting the fruits of his labours aroused him as few other things now could.

Nevertheless, he concealed his impatience. Appearances must be maintained, after all. Networks fostered and connections made. While lacking the visceral thrill of his less conventional dealings, there was still gratification in carving his way through the treacherous waters of the corporate world as the apex predator he knew himself to be, a shark among the minnows.

So, expression composed and manners impeccable, he charmed and mingled and pressed the flesh and shared toasts and exchanged small talk—and forced himself to savour the tide of heat rising within.

Nick stood there in the warm night, dripping onto the tiles. Who was this woman? Help? What did that even mean? Was she offering? Or maybe threatening? As in, back off soggy weirdo, or I'll call for help?

So absorbed was he in his own situation, so convinced he must be the sole repository of all the woe in the world, that only when she mouthed the word, "Please," did it dawn on him she might be asking. That there might be enough trouble in existence for someone else to have a share.

Responding to this required something of a mental shift on Nick's part. His most recent goals had been finding a way out of this life and then a way off this building; having screwed up the first and in the process of screwing up the second, he didn't feel like a person with much help to give.

Besides, why would somebody who lived in a place like this be asking a mystery trespasser for help? Why not call the police, or the paramedics, or whatever? Hell, even a boy scout would be more use than Nick in his current condition.

Nevertheless, he was the one she was asking. And irrespective of his capacity to help, the only way out of here was through her penthouse. Maybe she just needed a big spider sorted out?

Keeping his movements slow, he made his way over to the steel-framed glass doors that fronted the stairs leading up to the pool level, as the woman, her eyes never leaving him, shadowed his progress. Then, face to face, no more than a yard apart, they stood and regarded each other through the glass.

She was young, maybe early twenties. Although attractive, with high-cheekboned, Asiatic features and flawless skin, there were shadows under the dark eyes and something about her expression which evoked a pang of empathy in Nick—it seemed he wasn't the only one having a rough night. As she didn't seem inclined to do so herself, he reached for the door handle—to find it locked.

He rattled the handle just to be sure, but when the door didn't budge, gave the woman a questioning look and raised his hand to make the gesture of a key turning. She shook her head in response, before turning to a fresh page on her sketchpad. She held up the new message.

No key.

Trapped.

Nick blinked. Surely she couldn't be serious? Didn't the place have an internal exit? Some other way out? Stepping back, he looked up and down the length of the building, before turning back to mouth the question, "Window?" A look of blank incomprehension was his only reply. He swallowed, took a deep breath and—dusting off the vocal cords he thought he'd never use again—shouted, "Window?"

Still nothing. The glass must be double-glazed and pretty much soundproof. In frustration, he pointed left and then right, before drawing a square in the air, while again mouthing the word—this time the message got through. Shaking her head, the woman pointed to reinforce the message on the sketchpad.

Nick absorbed this. Right. Good. He was emotionally unstable, unemployed, wet, ID-less and his rap-sheet already included trespassing, and probably, given his luck, flying without a license. Mysterious women requesting break and enter services were the last thing he needed. Besides which, if he couldn't even help himself, how the hell could he help anyone else?

He didn't look like a saviour. He looked more like a half-drowned puppy, in need of saving himself.

But Mica didn't care—he would have to do. She didn't know who he was, what he was doing out there or why on Earth he was soaking wet when there wasn't a drop of rain in sight, but she didn't care—he would just have to do. Given his was the first non-Syndicate face she'd seen in weeks, she wasn't exactly spoiled for choice.

Or was he Syndicate? Her heart lurched at the prospect. He didn't look the type, and he hadn't come up in the lift as Salazar and his cronies and the roster of mute, expressionless cleaners who arrived once a week to service the penthouse always did, but perhaps that was a trick? A trap to lure her into thinking she might escape? To provide her with fresh hope, purely so Salazar could mock and crush and squeeze it out of her?

No. She would not allow herself to think such thoughts. She would not give up. She would cling to every last trace of hope, no matter how forlorn, no matter how strange the source. She must, otherwise she may as well curl up and die, and that was never going to happen. Mica Aquino was not a quitter. Mica Aquino was a fighter.

And she kept telling herself that, even as the stranger turned and walked away, no matter how empty the words felt.

Perhaps he was going to find something to pick the door's lock? Or maybe to bring back help? Yes, it must be something like that. As he trudged up the stairs to the upper level, she craned her neck to keep him in sight as long as possible, maintaining her position even after he was swallowed by the night, straining for the first glimpse of his return.

The clock above the fireplace marked the remorseless count of time ticking by, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred ticks, two hundred, as seconds became minutes and hope became despair. For a moment more she stared beyond the ghost-like reflection of her own haunted face, searching the darkness, trying by sheer force of will to conjure up the unknown man, or some other man or woman or child or god or monster or something or anything, anything that might provide the tiniest sliver of a chance of release from the luxurious, soul-destroying hell in which she was trapped.

In vain. The darkness remained empty. The apparition, whoever he might be, seemed to have returned to whence he had come. Dropping the sketchpad and pen at her feet, she turned and surveyed her prison, as a wave of weariness washed over her. Weariness for which she was profoundly grateful—sleep, her only refuge, was all too fleeting and rare.

Spurning the bedroom as always, Mica made her way to the sunken lounge and lay on the vast couch, her small figure almost lost among the plush cushions and pillows. Pulling a throw over herself, she closed her eyes and tried to forget the disappointment, to clear her mind, to allow the longed-for solace of insensibility to overtake her.

Her captor's lack of routine meant she never truly relaxed. It could be a week between Salazar's visits, or he could come several days in a row, in the morning or in the evening or any time at all. And each visit could be the one. The one where his urbane manners, his elaborate courtesy and mocking smile exploded into the lust and violence she knew must lurk beneath.

She didn't know if this uncertainty was a consequence of his 'business' dealings or a deliberate ploy, a tactic designed to add an extra dimension to her fear—to never allow her a moment's relaxation or respite from the dread that at any moment, day or night, the lift doors could open to reveal his smooth-skinned, snake-eyed face, redolent with self-satisfaction and expensive cologne. She didn't know, but she suspected the latter—when it came to conducting misery, Salazar was a maestro.

Dread was no friend to sleep, nevertheless, wrung-out by her encounter with the stranger, tired and dispirited, it wasn't long before she slipped into a fitful doze—a doze from which, with shocking suddenness, she was torn by a resounding crash, followed seconds later by the shattering cacophony of breaking glass.

Even as its author, Nick was a little appalled by the damage he had wrought.

Despite the weight and solidity of the deckchair, it had merely bounced off the section of reinforced glass at which he'd heaved it, utilising every last ounce of the strength his all-too-irregular gym sessions provided.

But not without effect. Promising cracks radiated out from the starred point of impact, enough so to encourage a second attempt, despite his fears the result would be the same as the first.

Far from it. Momentum hardly checked, the bulky missile had sailed through the pane, demolishing it before skidding crazily across the tiles and cannoning into a totem-pole-like statue, knocking it onto a nearby side-table and smashing its load of no-doubt valuable vases, trinkets and who-knew-what all over the unforgiving floor.

So, appalled—but also grimly satisfied.

His walk away from the penthouse and up the stairs had been automaton-like and without conscious direction, driven by some deep, atavistic urge towards the one sure-fire escape from his glaring inadequacies.

And as he'd stood once again on the precipice, his drying hair ruffled by the warm updraft gusting from the street so far below, he'd reflected that he balanced not just on the rooftop's edge, but on the edge of going on or giving up, of struggle or submission—of being Nick or being nothing at all.

For a long time he'd stood, buffeted by the breeze, aware one gust could mean his end and welcoming the thought. Until, unbidden, the memory of the woman returned to him. Her silent 'please.' Her careworn features. The longing in those dark eyes.

Although new to the city, Nick had seen enough to know whatever her problem may be, it was far more sinister than a spider.

And along with the image of her face, came a simple, solitary thought. If he was nothing—a nobody, of no value—well then, why not help her? After all, he should be dead. He was in credit to the value of one life. Why not spend that credit on something worthwhile? He was now a disposable asset, and as every accountant worth his salt knew, you didn't waste a disposable asset.

Plus, he liked the thought of breaking something.

Leaping to her feet, Mica gaped at the scene of destruction—but only for a moment. As her sleep-fogged mind processed the implications, exultation surged inside her, and she was half-way to the breach before it dawned on her bare feet and broken glass made for a bad combination.

After a maddening minute or so, as she scrabbled to find the slip-ons that were the only footwear she was allowed, she ran crunching across the jewel-like shards and out into the glorious freedom of the night—into the first non-recycled, non-conditioned air she had tasted in what felt like forever.

So enraptured was she with the night sky and the far horizons and the intoxicating elation of escape, it was some time before she noticed her rescuer, her ruffled and damp rescuer, standing and watching her with an expression hard to read in the half-light spilling from the penthouse.

A younger Mica, the more innocent and naive Mica of not so long ago, would have enveloped the stranger in an enormous hug, showered him with thanks and endearments and praise, held him and squeezed him until he pleaded for mercy and begged for release. But that Mica was gone. That Mica was banished to history, never to return.

The older and wiser Mica, the one who bore the battle-scars that belied her youth, who knew monsters were real and nightmares far more likely than dreams to come true, walked to within a few paces of the young man in his crumpled business shirt and bedraggled tie and said a simple, "Thank you."

The stranger's only reply was a lopsided smile.

And while Mica couldn't help but notice it was a rather nice smile, she was going to need a little more than that from him.

"With all that noise, they will be coming soon. And there are cameras. We must go. We must go, now."

The smile faded, but still the stranger did not speak.

Growing impatient, Mica took a step towards him. "Please, we must leave. The lift is locked, so we'll have to leave the way you came. Show me, please. Show me how you came to be here."

The stranger's eyes widened, and for a moment his mouth worked soundlessly, before at last he spoke.

"Ah, yeah. Ab-b-bout that."