The next door isn’t locked because you don’t lock doors that you think are protected by fear and design. We step into a chamber made of nonsense and money—white floors, glass pillars filled with light that moves like thought, cables braided into something like art. In the center, a pillar wider than a truck hums with a pulse that makes my teeth ache. It glows faintly red. It looks like a heart if a heart were built by a man who forgot what blood is for.
The hair on the back of my neck goes up.
Dom feels it too. He doesn’t lower his rifle. Aries scans high and low, jaw set. Vincent’s eyes are on the corners, the shadows, the places men forget to watch because they trust the pretty thing too much.
Kellen is already walking toward the pillar like a pilgrim going to argue with a particularl
