Aurora's POV By dawn, the underworld knew.It moved the way rot spreads through wood — silent, fast, irreversible. Viktor Hale was dead. Not missing, not arrested, not vanished. Dead. Killed on his own dock, on his knees, by a woman.Rumor sharpened the details with every retelling, but the core never changed: the cages had lost their master. And something worse had taken his place.I stood in the eastern control tower as the sun bled up over the water, turning oil-slick waves into molten copper. Below, men worked through the night under Cavarallo command — inventory seizures, record extractions, fuel lines cut to trafficking vessels, holding cells forced open and emptied. Smoke already drifted from the far warehouses.Nestore appeared quietly behind me. I felt him before I heard him."You haven't slept," he said."No."He stopped beside me, gaze sweeping the docks. "They're spreading it. Fast.""I want them to." I turned toward him. "Predators only change routes when they see anothe
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