Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Elara discovers the moth warning note and contacts Kael, who arrives at her studio to assess the threat. They determine that someone inside the Collectors organization knows about their planned approach to Desmond Crane. Kael examines the note and suggests they relocate to a secondary safe house. Elara insists on checking on Tobias, her forger contact, first. They drive to Tobias's apartment and find evidence of a struggle—his door ajar, furniture overturned, and Tobias missing. Kael identifies professional extraction techniques in the scene. Elara finds a hidden message Tobias left behind a loose baseboard: coordinates and a timestamp for the following night. They realize the Collectors have begun moving against anyone connected to their plan. Kael takes Elara to a backup location—a converted industrial space on the east side—and they reassess their timeline, agreeing they may need to accelerate the Meridian operation before Crane disappears behind additional security. The chapter ends with Elara spotting a surveillance van parked across from the new safe house, confirming they are being actively tracked.
I read the words three times. Crane knows you're coming. Four words, each one a nail hammered into the architecture of eleven days' worth of planning. The moth stared up at me from the cream paper, its wings rendered in precise black strokes, antennae curling like question marks. Someone had slipped this under my studio door while I'd been at the warehouse with Kael, mapping elevator banks and discussing catering uniforms, and I hadn't been here to stop them.
The paper trembled. No—I was trembling. My hands had gone cold, the way they always did when adrenaline hit before my mind could catch up. Kael had said that last night. Your body braces before your mind catches up. I hated that he was right.
I locked the deadbolt. Then the chain. Then stood in my kitchen holding a piece of paper that meant everything had changed and tried to think past the roar in my skull.
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