The freezing November rain battered the floor-to-ceiling windows of Zara's Upper East Side penthouse, blurring the glittering Manhattan skyline into streaks of gold and crimson.
Ryan stepped out of the private elevator.
The heavy steel doors slid shut behind him, sealing away the lethal, high-tension atmosphere of the corporate warzone.
The air inside the apartment tasted of cedar, expensive vanilla, and absolute, structural safety.
He shrugged off his overcoat, tossing it over the back of a velvet armchair. The phantom weight of the Warlord Protocol still hummed in his bones.
He had stolen a hundred-and-forty-million-dollar logistics firm before lunch, and a Syndicate killer was currently flying across the Atlantic to put a bullet in his head.
But as he walked into the sprawling, dimly lit living room, the cold, metallic machinery in his chest stalled.
