CHAPTER 74 — WHEN THE FIRST MOVE IS MADE
Morning did not arrive gently.
It crept into the Kane mansion like an intruder, pale and unwelcome, slipping through the tall floor-to-ceiling windows and brushing against marble floors and dark wood panels without warmth. The light felt hesitant, as though even dawn understood that peace no longer lived here.
Elena woke before the alarm.
Her eyes opened slowly, instinctively, adjusting to the muted gray of the room. Silence pressed in around her—not the comforting kind, but the deliberate stillness that came before something broke. She lay unmoving, staring at the ceiling, her breathing measured as she listened.
Footsteps echoed faintly in distant corridors. Security shifts changing. Low voices murmuring into communication devices. Somewhere beneath the mansion, generators hummed steadily, the sound woven so deeply into the estate that it had become part of its heartbeat.
The world had not reset overnight.
Nothing had softened.
