Adrian
Three days.
Her office has been dark for three days.
I stand at the window of my study, the city’s indifferent hum a low-grade irritation against my skin. The silence from her is a physical weight. It’s wrong. Elara Voss does not miss appointments. She is a creature of meticulous, punishing routine. Her absence is a scream in a vacuum only I can hear.
“Leo,” I say into the phone, my voice flat. “Find out why.”
I don’t elaborate. He knows. He’s been watching her building, a shadow among shadows, for seventy-two hours. I end the call and wait. The minutes are granular, each one a small stone added to the pile in my gut. I don’t pace. I become very still. The kind of stillness that comes before breaking something.
When the phone vibrates, I answer before the first ring finishes.
