Aria’s POV
The safe room smelled like steel and dust, the kind of place built for emergencies and never actually used until now.
Elena huddled on the bench across from me, knees pulled to her chest, while security’s voices crackled through the intercom in clipped, urgent bursts I could barely follow. Somewhere above us, the house I’d started to think of as a beautiful cage had become an actual battlefield.
“How many?” I heard Romanov ask through the small speaker mounted near the door, his voice cutting through the chaos with the same flat control he used for everything.
“Two confirmed at the east fence,” a guard answered. “Possibly a third near the garage. They’re not local. Professional.”
“Casualties?”
“One of ours. Grazed, not critical.”
I pressed my palm flat against the cold wa
