[Jake's POV]
The forty-second floor of Apex Tower was transformed into a fortress within a fortress.
Darius had locked down the elevators, stationed armed guards at the stairwells, and reinforced the floor-to-ceiling windows with ballistic shielding. The sterile medical suite where I was confined became the nerve center of our global shadow war.
I was sitting up in the hospital bed, propped against a mountain of pillows. My right side was heavily bandaged, the stitches pulling painfully every time I shifted my weight. The painkillers dulled the agony to a manageable throb, but the sheer physical exhaustion of operating without the System's regenerative protocols was a heavy, suffocating weight. I felt every bruise, every cut, every aching muscle.
