The silence in the tunnel was total, broken only by the rhythmic drip of water against the arched ceiling and the muffled, heavy tread of their boots on the gravel. Julian moved with a predatory, low-slung grace, his hand never straying far from the tactical pistol holstered at his hip. Behind him, Elena walked with the same lethal precision, her tablet stowed away, her eyes scanning the darkness with the clarity of a night-vision scope.
They were beneath the Industrial District, a labyrinth of abandoned service tunnels that once supported the city’s coal-fed power plants. It was the ancestral home of the Iron Vultures, a place where the air tasted of ancient history and deep, unhealed scars.
"Dominic says the perimeter is clean," Elena whispered, her voice a low, melodic vibration in
