December turns the city into a lie.
From a distance, it looks soft—snow dusting rooftops, lights blinking along bridges like the city’s trying to remember how to be gentle. Up close, it’s steel and ice and breath that hurts when you pull it in too fast. It’s roads that don’t forgive mistakes. It’s engines that don’t warm up the way they should. It’s danger dressed like holiday magic.
We’re already running when the first warning hits.
“Two minutes,” Zee says in my ear, her voice clipped but steady. “Syndicate SUVs rerouted off the south ramp. They’re fast. Blacked out. You’ve got eyes?”
Adrian doesn’t answer immediately. His hands tighten on the wheel, knuckles pale against the dark leather. The car hums beneath us—low, tuned, restless—like it knows something bad is coming and wants to
