The old penthouse at the edge of the docks was nothing like Jaxon’s usual haunts. It had no polished marble floors or expensive leather furnishings. It smelled faintly of rust and salt, the walls scarred from a time when it had served as a discreet safehouse for fleeing clients and dying secrets. But now, it would become something else, something colder. Strategic. A war room.
Raven stood in the middle of the living room, which had been gutted to bare essentials: a long table made of steel and glass, power cords snaking along the floor, screens already flickering with surveillance feeds, maps, and names. Her hands trembled as she placed her encrypted flash drive beside a stack of untraceable burner phones.
"It doesn’t look like much," she said.
Jaxon stepped in behind her, silent in his
