We were trapped in a gilded cage of our own making, and the hunter was outside the door.
The blaring alarm died, but the blood-red strobe lights continued to pulse, casting the penthouse in a hellish, rhythmic glow. The silence that followed was somehow louder, a pressurized vacuum waiting to be shattered.
TICK-TOCK. TICK-TOCK.
The message flashed on every screen, a digital heartbeat counting down to an unknown doom. We were locked in, cut off from the world, and the penthouse, our sanctuary and fortress, had become the ultimate trap.
Lysander was a statue of coiled tension, his bare chest gleaming in the crimson light. He’d thrown on a pair of trousers, his movements fluid and lethal as he moved to a seemingly blank section of the wall.
“The system’s completely compromised. It’s an i
