Salvatore's POV
She was right. It was the tactical truth.
If a tactical team was in the wind, the atmosphere in the room would be different. The dogs would be restless, the early morning birds would have gone silent in the valley, and my phone would be burning up with alerts from the perimeter sensors.
Instead, the only sound was the settling of the house and the faint, rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
"So," I said, letting the silence hang between us like a suspended sentence. "No raid. That leaves us with the question of content."
I took a pack of cigarettes from the desk, shook one loose, and lit it. The flare of the lighter was the only movement in the room. I watched her through the smoke. She didn't blink.
"Forty-seven seconds," I mused. "That's a long time for a distress call. It's barely enough time to verify a secure handshake, let alone transmit a tactical assessment of the fortress. You didn't send coordinates. You didn't send a sit-rep."
