The storm was getting worse.By the time Elias and Nyla reached Calder Row, the streets were rivers of oily water, headlights glinting off the surface like knives. The district was mostly abandoned at night—rows of shuttered warehouses and sagging brick façades, relics from when Gravenloch still had a booming shipping industry. Now the only traffic was freight trucks that moved under corporate contracts, and they were gone by midnight.Nyla pulled her jacket tighter as they splashed through the empty street. “How do you even know where the tunnel entrance is?”“I designed parts of it,” Elias said shortly. “Back when the city was expanding east.”“Of course you did.” She rolled her eyes but kept pace, jogging to stay beside him.Elias ignored her. His mind worked faster than his feet, mapping layouts, recalling old blueprints he hadn’t seen in years. The Metro under Calder Row was meant to be a crown jewel, a subterranean artery linking commerce to the heart of the city. But corruption

The hum of the city pressed against the glass walls of Adrian’s apartment like an impatient crowd trying to break in. Neon washed the skyline in jagged strokes of blue and crimson, colors that felt too loud for a man whose life had become a whisper. He stood in front of the window, the reflection of his tired eyes staring back at him—eyes that had seen too much in the last twenty-four hours.The anonymous note burned in his mind. Find the patterns. The answers are in the fractures. The words weren’t just vague; they felt tailored, intimate, as if whoever wrote them knew how Adrian’s brain worked—how he dissected lines, mapped curves, and decoded structures. Someone out there was playing his game, and worse, they were playing it better.He had tried to sleep. He had tried to shut down the constant pulse of thought. But instead, sketches filled his desk—blueprints not of buildings, but of connections. Names, dates, questions. His pencil scratched furiously across the page, searching for

The abandoned textile factory loomed in front of Adrian, its rusted skeleton glowing faintly under the sickly light of a flickering streetlamp. Every window was shattered, jagged edges catching the light like broken teeth. The rain hadn’t stopped, soaking through his jacket, plastering his hair to his forehead, but his pulse ran hotter than the storm.His father’s notes had led him here.Inside his messenger bag, the old leather journal weighed on him like a second heart. The scrawled pages were riddled with calculations, schematics, and codes Adrian hadn’t yet cracked. But one sketch stood out—a crude outline of this very building, marked with a symbol he had seen before only in whispers online: the Architect’s key.Adrian glanced over his shoulder. Empty streets, only the whisper of rain. Yet instinct told him he wasn’t alone. He slid his hand into his pocket, fingers brushing the smooth handle of his lockpick kit. His father had taught him more than mathematics and design. He’d tau

Rain had turned the city into a glistening ruin. The gutters were swollen with black water, neon reflections bleeding into puddles, and the air reeked of ozone and burnt wiring. Damian Vey moved through the soaked alleyways like a shadow refusing to be washed away, his hood pulled low against the storm.The map he had stolen from Novatek’s servers was etched into his mind now—an underground labyrinth of tunnels and decommissioned subway lines that threaded beneath the financial district. Locals called it the Flooded Veins. According to the blueprints, one of the Consortium’s most secure data vaults was buried beneath this drowned catacomb. And according to the dead journalist’s encrypted notes he’d decrypted earlier, that vault didn’t just contain digital assets—it contained evidence. Names. Accounts. A trail that could burn half the city’s elites to ash.But first, Damian had to get there alive.The storm wasn’t helping. Every step down the crumbling stairwell leading to the tunnels

The basement felt like a tomb. Cold concrete pressed in from every side, the hum of old pipes echoing faintly through the darkness. Adrian swept his flashlight in a slow arc, revealing walls papered with notes, photographs, and scraps of maps. Each corner was crowded with clues—some pinned neatly, others scrawled in manic haste. Whoever had lived here had been obsessed.Detective Mason’s voice was low, reverent almost. “This isn’t just a hideout. It’s a blueprint.”Adrian stepped closer to the wall. The centerpiece was a massive city map of Manhattan, thick red strings crisscrossing it into a web. Each knot connected to newspaper clippings: missing persons, fire reports, unexplained gas leaks. Some dates stretched back years, others only weeks old.And at the heart of it all, circled in heavy black ink, was the symbol.The Eye in the Pyramid.The same symbol that had been branded into the men Adrian fought in the