The air in the apartment was heavy—not with blood (that had dried in the past)—but with decisions. The kind that weigh. The kind that separate those who survive from those who merely exist.
Zack and Sage were going through the contents of the open safe, papers scattered across the table like remnants of a story too dangerous to speak aloud. I stepped closer for a moment. I saw Sage holding one of the scrolls with reverent care, as if she already knew that inside that cylinder lay the face of someone we had either long awaited—or long feared.
“Start with that,” I said softly. “I want to know if Darian is more than a ghost. And if the owner of that box has a name, we need it.”
Zack nodded without looking up, already deep in his paper-and-celluloid hunt.
Tony, meanwhile, was adjusting his
