The warehouse had been dead for years, but tonight it felt too dead. Wind pushed through broken windows, rattling iron sheets like loose teeth. Rust hung in the air. Moonlight leaked through the cracked roof in thin silver streaks. Adrian stood outside the wide metal structure, head tilted slightly, breathing slow. To anyone else, this looked like a forgotten storage yard. But his instincts… They were blazing. Too still. Too controlled. Too perfect. Something waited inside—something built with patience and malice. Adrian exhaled once, letting his heartbeat settle into that strange rhythm he’d begun noticing recently: A rhythm that synced with danger. He circled around the building and slipped in through a side door whose hinges had long surrendered to rust. The door screeched softly, but Adrian moved in sync with the sound, stepping only when the wind pushed through the cracks to mask him. His footsteps whispered across shattered concrete. He scanned the dar

The warehouse hums with the faint buzz of old fluorescent lights—stuttering, half-dead, flickering like they’re afraid of what’s hiding in the shadows. Dust floats in the air, shimmering like ash from a funeral pyre. The five men below stand tense, guns trembling in their hands, eyes scanning the room for a ghost they know is there but cannot see.Adrian watches them from behind a collapsed stack of metal crates, breath steady, heartbeat calm. These men aren’t rookies. Their stances tell him they’ve killed before. Their spacing shows they’ve trained together. Their masks hide faces carved by loyalty—and fear.But they’re afraid of the wrong thing.They think they’re hunting a man.They’re hunting a weapon.Focus, Adrian tells himself. Precision. Silence.He moves.One smooth step, silent as a shadow slipping through the cracks of a dying world. His boots barely kiss the concrete. He approaches the first man from behind—big shoulders, unsteady hands, shallow breath.Adrian strikes.An

The night air outside the warehouse feels colder, sharper—like the whole city is holding its breath.Adrian steps out, boots crunching on gravel soaked with oil and rainwater. His ribs ache from the earlier fight. His breath comes out in slow clouds, tight with pain he refuses to acknowledge.He thinks the worst is over.He’s wrong.Click.Headlights explode to life—white, blinding, brutal.Three black vans screech across the exit in a tight triangular formation. Engines growl like hunting beasts.For a single, suspended second, nobody moves.Then the doors slide open in perfect unison.Gunmen pour out—twelve, maybe fifteen—faces covered, weapons raised. Silenced SMGs gleam under the halogen glare.Instinct slams into Adrian’s bloodstream like electricity.Move.The first burst of fire erupts—quiet but deadly, a storm of subsonic bullets slicing through the air. Adrian dives sideways behind a massive steel drum as sparks explode along its surface. The metal vibrates violently with eac

Adrian doesn’t go straight to his hideout.He moves like a hunted man.He cuts through alleyways, vaults fences, doubles back several times. Twice he stops—listening, still as stone. Someone could’ve followed him from the docks. Someone might be tracking him now.Only after he’s certain he’s shaken every possible tail does he slip into the crumbling apartment he’s been using as a safe-house. The lock clicks behind him. The stale smell of dust greets him.He exhales slowly.He’s alive.Barely.He strips off his blood-spattered jacket, tosses it on the table, and scans the room automatically.Windows sealed.Tripwire intact.Motion alarm still armed.No footprints but his.Safe.For the moment.He drops onto the lone chair, fingers pressing into the bruises on his ribs. The gunfire, the explosives, the voice, the stranger’s assassination—it all crashes into him at once like a storm collapsing.Then—His phone buzzes.A sound too loud in the quiet.He stiffens.Unknown number.Same as th

A cold hour.The kind of hour where cities feel hollow—like the world forgot to breathe.Adrian moves like a shadow across the roof of the municipal archive. The rain has stopped, but the air is damp enough that every breath turns to mist. He crouches beside the skylight and cracks it open with careful, silent precision.Tonight isn’t about stealing information.It’s about stealing back pieces of himself.He drops through the opening and lands in a crouch between two massive filing cabinets. The room is pitch-black except for a flickering emergency light at the far end.He waits. Listens.Nothing but the hum of old ventilation.Good.He starts walking.The municipal archive is a fortress of forgotten truths—towers of paperwork, metal shelves, rusting locks. The city spends billions on surveillance but pennies on preserving its own history. Which makes it perfect for someone to hide or erase a life.Adrian reaches the first reinforced door.A keypad. Biometric scanner. Motion sensor.C