light in the ashes
Gabe ordered, his voice flat, low, and completely devoid of the raw, vulnerable emotion that had consumed him seconds earlier.
Outside, the ambient glow of high-intensity halogen floodlights erupted from street level, bleeding through the metal blinds and painting the shadow-drenched room in harsh, skeletal bars of light. The sudden power cut had not been an equipment failure or a storm-induced grid collapse. It was a synchronized, external kill-switch cut, executed by a professional breach team establishing absolute containment around the perimeter. Their safehouse had been burned.