[Jake's POV]
The first thing that hit me was the heat.
It wasn't the dry, biting cold of a New York winter, nor was it the crisp, conditioned air of the Apex Tower penthouse. As the sliding glass doors of Macau International Airport parted, a wall of oppressive, suffocating humidity slammed into my chest. It smelled of aviation fuel, salt water, and the faint, metallic tang of ozone.
I adjusted the strap of the canvas duffel bag digging into my shoulder. Inside the bag was exactly fifty thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential hundred-dollar bills, two encrypted burner phones that Nia had built from scratch, and a pair of forged Canadian passports that had cost more than most people made in a decade.
That was it. That was the entirety of my net worth.
