Raven stood at the long war-room table, palms flat on the cool surface, eyes moving across the fresh intelligence spread in front of her.
The lamp overhead cast a hard white circle. Outside the tall windows, the sky remained black, but the room already smelled of strong coffee and tension. Twelve new red pins marked the map, foreign and stripped of any family crest, showing only coordinates and timestamps.
Mercenaries.
Unlike Caruso's usual crew, these were professionals. They had no blood ties, no old loyalties, no grudges that could be bought or twisted. Hired to do one thing and disappear before the city woke, they were twelve ghosts with clean passports and heavy bank accounts. Whatever Caruso had promised them, it was enough to bring them across three borders.
Gabriel's voice cut through the silence. "Confirmed movement. Three continents in fourteen months. Six high-value kills. All clean. No survivors left to talk."
