The black SUV didn't drive toward the Reed estate; it screamed toward it, tires biting into the asphalt of the winding hillside roads with a predatory howl. Inside, the silence was louder than the engine. Asher sat to my left, his face illuminated by the rhythmic pulse of passing streetlamps—light, dark, light, dark. He looked less like a man and more like a statue of Retribution.
"Kill the lights," Asher ordered as we rounded the final bend.
The driver flicked the toggle. We plunged into a tactical blackout, gliding through the silver-blue moonlight like a ghost ship. The estate loomed ahead, a jagged silhouette of stone and glass against the San Francisco fog. It was dark. Not just "lights off" dark, but a heavy, unnatural void where the pulse of our life used to be.
"Entry team, status," Marcus's voice crackled through the earpiece.
