The war room at midnight smelled like old coffee and tension.
Raven stepped inside. Seven Guardians, all already there. The long table glowed with lit maps, red markers tracing a route that should have been secure, now bleeding out on some highway thirty miles away. No one spoke when she entered. The air had that charged thickness right before a storm breaks. She knew that feel in her bones.
Vincent stood at the head. Coat on. One hand flat on the wood. His eyes found her immediately, dark and giving nothing, and held.
Gabriel broke first. "The shipment never made it past the second checkpoint." His voice was flat, scraped clean of anything but fact. "Caruso hit it thirty minutes before arrival. Exact coordinates. Exact timing. They knew."
The words landed like a body hitting concrete.
