The Council leader’s smirk didn’t last. The control room smelled like ozone and old coffee; monitors glared like tired eyes as alarms began to scream. Jake felt the room tilt for a heartbeat—an almost dizzying awareness of how many moving parts the city’s control system had been: lights, locks, cameras, payrolls, patrols. All of it in one place, and all of it within reach.“Lock the exits,” the leader barked, voice thin with authority that hadn’t yet been stripped away. His hands danced over the console, trying to raise barriers, summon reinforcements, call in favors the raids had not yet silenced.Jake didn’t hesitate. The gun in his hand felt like an extension of everything that had led him here—anger, fatigue, stubbornness. He advanced with Elena and Lina at his flanks, Reeva a step behind, fingers twitching near the knife at her belt. The team moved with the same precision that had put them through warehouses and mills. This time, the room itself was part of the plan.Elena slamme

The rumor started like a trickle — a string of whispers carried on knocked doors and hurried market exchanges. A new gathering, they said. Young men clustering in an old factory on the east side, coaches and promises and a recruiter with a smooth tongue. A faction that didn't want the old order, but didn't trust the new one either. They called themselves a movement; Jake called them a threat until more details arrived.He was at the safehouse when the first call came. Lina’s voice was flat through the handset. “They’ve got a meeting tonight at the Harren factory. Not a remnant cell — something else. New faces, foreign accents. They’re recruiting for street control. They’ve posted guard duty pay.”Jake rubbed his jaw. “Why would anyone take that? We gave them a choice.”“Some will always sell hope for a paycheck,” Lina said. “There’s poverty, Jake. People are tired. Money talks.”Reeva kicked a chair out of the way and stood, long-sleeved shirt catching the dim light. “Then we cut off

The interrogation room smelled of stale coffee and bleach. Jake sat opposite the tall man they’d hauled from the warehouse, watching him carefully. He’d expected him to be defiant, to spit lies, to cling to some half-formed allegiances. Instead the man was quiet, tired, as if life had ground him down into something small and brittle.“Tell me his name,” Jake said, leaning forward. “Who’s arranging the shipments?”The man’s eyes flicked to the one-way mirror, then back to Jake. He shrugged as if the motion cost him nothing. “Hassan,” he said finally. “Hassan and the contractors. Offshore accounts. Somebody’s paying through fronts. You cut a line, we find another.”“Where does Hassan operate from?” Elena asked from the corner, her voice precise, a blade disguised as a question.The man hesitated, jaw working. “North dock. Warehouse nine. He uses the tide and the fog. Small barges. Quiet runs at dawn.”Jake felt the same electric surge he always felt before a stakeout. It tightened his m

They filled the plaza before dawn—slow at first, then in a pulse. People who had once lurked behind curtains came out with blankets and thermoses. Shopkeepers locked their doors and carried a folding chair to the square. Elders who had kept silent for years took their places on the front row. Children, still sleepy, were handed biscuits by volunteers. The safehouse teams arrived in a quiet procession: Elena with a stack of printed ledgers, Lina with two legal clerks, Reeva with an armful of walkie-talkies and bandanas for the volunteers. Jake stood on the low stage, watching them come, feeling the heavy certainty that this was both a beginning and a test.The legal team from the council arrived like a different kind of army—neat folders, steady voices, eyes that had learned to translate fraud into action. They set up a makeshift table under a tarp and began the slow, visible work of sorting documents: account numbers, transaction chains, shell company names. Elena had prepared the fil

They moved like a pulse through the night—tight, rehearsed, almost ritual. The outskirts smelled of cold iron and wet earth. Jake felt every heartbeat as if it were an engine in his chest. He loved these moments and hated them: the clarity of purpose cut against the knowledge of what could be lost.“Split into three,” he whispered as the team fanned out. “Elena and Reeva take the north depot. Lina, you’re with me on the eastern trucks. Maya and Cal secure the evac points and medpost. Move fast. No heroics.”Lina nodded, eyes bright in the streetlight. “We go in, out, and gone. Simple.”Simple rarely lasted. Tonight it bent toward complicated within minutes.They hit the north depot like a blade. Elena’s fingers found the circuit box and the lights died in soft, obedient waves. Reeva folded guards into unconscious bodies with economy. The depot was older than most things in the city and smelled like it—oil, sweat, and long-night schemes. Crates were stacked high, marked with the symbol