The penthouse lay in near darkness, illuminated only by the cold blue wash of a wall-sized screen and the amber slant of whiskey in Talon's glass, which stubbornly refused to do what whiskey was meant to do. He sat forward on the edge of a leather chaise with the tense stillness of a man who had forgotten how to rest years ago, his shirt sleeves shoved carelessly to his elbows and the ink across his chest pulling faintly whenever he drew breath too sharply. After scrubbing a hand over his face, he hit replay again, not because he expected the footage to change, but because obsession had long since replaced hope with ritual.
The surveillance clip flickered back to the beginning:
