The sun had barely shifted when the small town started its usual rhythm again—distant chatter, birds moving between fences, the soft sound of water from the garden hose.
To Rebecca, it still looked like the same quiet place.
But she wasn’t being watched the way she thought.
She was being held in place.
⸻
California — Damian’s Penthouse
The phone sat silent on the table, still showing missed calls from Rebecca.
Damian didn’t touch it.
Instead, he stood in front of a wall-mounted screen divided into multiple encrypted feeds.
Ethan watched from a distance as new overlays appeared—maps, signal grids, personnel markers moving in real time.
“Surveillance deployment is complete,” one of the tech operators on the line reported.
Damian gave a small nod.
“Perimeter?”
“Four outer points
