The storm had passed. But the pressure hadn't.
The city outside the Delaney penthouse shimmered under morning sun, too clean, too sharp—like a knife pretending to be light. In the silence, the building creaked. The kind of creak that came not from age, but from tension.
Something in the air had shifted.
Sloane stood by the window, phone in one hand, fingers wrapped too tight. The message had come in an hour ago. Encrypted. No sender ID. Just a location. A time. And a photo.
Avery. Leaving the Delaney lobby yesterday. Looking over his shoulder.
The caption beneath it was short.
You move again without my permission, and I take what's yours.
Hunter Russell had returned.
And he wasn't hiding anymore.
---
They met at an old conservatory.
Once owned by the city, now sealed off for "restoration." The garden dome was cracked at the top, vines climbing its broken ribs like veins over bone. Statues watched from beneath dead ivy. Everything smelled of damp earth and slow decay.
