Chapter Forty-Nine: The Reset

The study was too quiet.

Too still.

It reeked of silence. Heavy, expectant silence, the kind that didn’t comfort, didn’t cradle. The kind that sharpened itself against the walls like a knife.

Robert Wolfe sat in the armchair beside the fireplace, though no fire had been lit. The late afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows through the tall windows, stretching across the polished wood floors like spilled blood. His phone, sleek and black as a blade, lay untouched beside a half full tumbler of whiskey. His cigar had long since gone cold, the ash crumbling in the tray beside him.

He hadn’t noticed.

His mind was elsewhere, calculating, dissecting, rearranging.

Killian hadn’t answered his call.

Not the first. Not the second. Not the third.

Three attempts in forty eight hours. And Killian, cunning, cold, infuriatingly consistent, had never ignored him before. The boy who understood the chain of command better than anyone. The one who knew who fed the wolves.

Now? Silence. Deliberate, defiant