Adrian's darkest hour
The skyline was engulfed in shadow as night descended like a veil over the city. From the safe house window, the glass towers still glimmered, but their light no longer inspired awe. Once, those illuminated spines of steel and ambition had bowed to Adrian Cross’s will. Tonight, they looked indifferent—distant stars in a sky that had forgotten his name.
He sat alone at the long wooden table, the room lit only by a single lamp pushed to one side, casting uneven shadows across the walls. The table was scarred with faint scratches and burn marks, remnants of earlier occupants who had used it as a place of strategy, sentencing, and survival. Adrian leaned forward, elbows planted firmly on the surface, his hands gripping his hair as if holding himself together by force a
