All Chapters of The Debt Collector's Price: Chapter 81 - Chapter 85

ISLA'S POVSouth Bronx. 12:47 PM.The coordinates lead us to a dead end of chain-link fencing topped with rusted barbed wire that looks like it hasn't cut anything but the wind for twenty years. A sign hangs crooked, the metal groaning against its bolts: Morrison Industrial Site - No Trespassing.Beyond the mesh, concrete buildings decay in silence. I see corroded iron beams jutting out like ribs, shattered windows that look like missing teeth, and stagnant water pooling in the cracked asphalt, shimmering with an oil slick rainbow.It’s the silence of a grave.Gabriel's SUV parks fifty feet from the entrance, the engine ticking as it cools. Maria Santos exits first, her tactical team flowing out behind her like water. Four o

ISLA'S POV8:30 AM. The penthouse.The lights don’t just flicker; they stutter. A jagged, electrical seizure that cuts the room into strobe-lit frames. Once. Twice.Then they stabilize, but the quality of the light has changed. Thinner. Weaker.Gabriel looks up from his laptop, his eyes narrowing. "Did you feel that?""I felt it."I pull up the Smart Grid interface on my own screen. The data isn't flowing; it’s hemorrhaging. The power consumption graph shows a spike so vertical it looks like a glitch."The building is drawing power," I say, my fingers flying over the keys. "It's redirecting the load. Pulling from the perimeter and dumping it som