The structural glass walls of the Salvatore penthouse didn't just vibrate; they screamed.
High-decibel tactical sirens tore through the violet twilight, their rhythmic, blood-red flashes painting the mahogany-lined study in a garish, pulsing rhythm. Down in the primary courtyard, forty stories below, the heavy iron security gates had already been flattened by the reinforced bumpers of unmarked federal transport vans. The air inside the apartment grew thick, heavy with the sudden, metallic tang of the building’s automated HVAC systems shutting down to prevent the spread of tactical smoke.
Elena sat perfectly still in the heavy leather office chair, her fingers frozen over the mechanical keyboard. On the dead black screen, the faint, green ghost image of the completed file routing transfer
