The mansion didn't feel like a fortress anymore. It felt like a glass house, fragile and transparent, waiting for the next stone to shatter it.
I sat in my study, the leather chair feeling like a throne of thorns. My side throbbed in a steady, agonizing rhythm, a reminder of the lead that had nearly claimed me. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the cold fury radiating through my chest. I watched the security monitors, the blue light reflecting in my eyes as I replayed the footage for the tenth time.
A nondescript delivery van. A man in a generic, faded blue uniform. He didn't even look at the cameras. He had dropped the crate, turned on his heel, and vanished back into the San Francisco fog in less than sixty seconds. He moved like a ghost, but ghosts didn't carry hand-carved wooden horses painted the color of fresh arterial spray.
