The night before the assault was the kind of quiet that hummed like static beneath the skin a silence charged with something alive, something waiting to break. In the safehouse, light spilled from the map table where screens flickered and equipment gleamed under pale LEDs. Every heartbeat seemed to echo against the concrete walls.

Alexander stood over the table, eyes fixed on the digital map. Red dots pulsed across the display Damien’s known outposts. The largest cluster burned at the ...