It seeped through the thin soles of her shoes, up from the concrete floor of the warehouse, and settled somewhere deep in her bones.

The second thing was the silence. Not empty silence. Waiting silence.

Somewhere behind her, a man cleared his throat. Then another. The faint creak of leather. The click of a lighter. The smell of smoke and damp stone.

Across the room, seated in a chair that might as well have been a throne, Victor Whitlock watched her with the patient disinterest of a man who had already decided exactly how this meeting would end.

A door opened somewhere to the left. Heavy footsteps. Slow. Unhurried. A figure emerged from the shadows near the back of the warehouse, hands in the pockets of a dark jacket, jaw tight, eyes already fixed on Y/n like she was an inconvenience he’d been ordered to tolerate.