A week after the kidnapping event, the city was alive with celebration.
The smoke had cleared. And every screen, from street corners to high-rise penthouses, looped the same footage — General Leonard Norse shaking hands with military officials, flashes from cameras exploding like gunfire.
News anchors called the operation "a masterstroke—a defining moment of military precision." Commentators praised the swift capture of the Kuta stronghold as if it were a chess move executed by a grandmaster instead of a blood-stained battlefield reclaimed in the dark.
To the city, it was a victory.
To the Zuvel family, it was survival.
To the Norse, it was another defining moment of valor.
...
On the east side of the city, beyond a wrought-iron gate and perfectly trimmed hedges, the Norse mansion glowed beneath warm amber lights. The kind of lighting that made power look elegant and untouchable.
