The safehouse had its own pulse, and tonight it beat slow and cold. Pipes groaned with the weight of water, the floor carried echoes like secrets, and the mat in the center looked less like training equipment and more like a stage waiting for a performance it already knew by heart. I stood there with gloves in my hands and the city still clinging to my skin from the night before, thinking about Cheyenne, about Rafe, about doors and who got to choose where they led.
Luca arrived with the quiet precision of a man who had long ago learned to let shadows do the talking for him. He didn’t waste time. He placed a folder on the table between us, and even before I opened it, the air in the room shifted. Inside were screenshots, timestamps, log entries. A badge request made, canceled almost instan
