The estate filled the room.
Layers of it—floors, wings, sublevels—hovered in overlapping projections, security cones painted in pale reds and blues that crawled slowly as patrol routes updated. Camera clusters blinked. Dead zones appeared, then vanished as redundant systems overlapped them.
Nolan stood at the center of it, arms folded, eyes burning as he tracked the patterns.
It was too much.
Too clean. Too prepared.
Even with everything they'd pulled in—construction records, contractor chatter, zoning anomalies, service schedules—it still felt like they were staring at the outline of a thing, not the thing itself.
They didn't even have a fraction of it.
"Impossible it's—" Nolan started, voice tight.
"Impossible fuck—FUCK, that was such a good idea too!" Quentin snapped, throwing his hands up, pacing a tight circle through the projection like it might flinch away from him.
Kieran leaned forward, jaw set. "So what, we just call it off? The plan is still solid. They will turn on each other."
Nolan didn't answer right away.
Because Kieran was right.
The logic held. The pressure points were real. Maria, Kane, the Court's internal paranoia—those threads were already fraying. But the estate itself sat there like a silent verdict.
A fortress pretending to be a home.
Even with everything they'd built since the gang war—networks, people, money, reach—there was no clean way in. No path that didn't end with alarms, bodies, or both.
Stealth was a fantasy.
Force was suicide.
Nolan exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. "We can't stage anything inside. Not without being seen. Not without setting off half the alarms and half the cops in this damn city."
Quentin stopped pacing, scowling at the hologram. "So we've got a perfect setup and a brick wall in the middle of it."
Kieran's voice lowered. "Which means the wall is the point."
Nolan looked at him.
"Think about it," Kieran continued. "They expect attacks there. That's why it's impossible. That's why it's layered like this. The estate isn't just protected—it's bait. We have to scrap the estate."
Silence settled again as the idea hung between them.
Nolan's gaze drifted back to the projections, to the neat certainty of overlapping security.
They couldn't break in.
Which meant… they had to make the Court leave it.
"I have an idea." Vey suddenly said his eyes locked onto Nolan's own
"Well let's hear it."
Vey sighed, "You will not like it." Sometimes vey wished Nolan wasn't so soft on some matters
But that's why he was here.
***
The Powers Grand rose out of Midtown like a monument to restraint and excess in equal measure.
Polished stone. Warm gold lighting. Chandeliers that didn't sparkle so much as glow, their light softened by layers of crystal and intention. The lobby smelled faintly of citrus and old money, the kind of scent engineered to suggest calm, wealth, and permanence.
Guests moved through it like they belonged there—tailored coats, quiet conversations, laughter kept tasteful and low. Staff in immaculate uniforms glided rather than walked, eyes always forward, posture perfect.
Several floors up, on a level priced just high enough to deter curiosity, a man unlocked his room and stepped inside.
He looked ordinary.
Mid-thirties, unremarkable face, expensive but conservative clothes. The kind of guest no one remembered five minutes after passing him in the hall. He set his luggage on the bed and began to unpack with practiced calm.
Shirts first. Folded neatly. A jacket hung in the closet.
Then the second layer.
From the lining of the suitcase, he removed sealed packets, thin sheets of treated material, compact and dry. A small ignition device. No accelerants that would spread. No chaos. Just enough.
He worked efficiently, placing the materials near the window, arranging them to burn hot and fast without crawling outward. The goal wasn't destruction.
It was fear.
He checked his watch once, then once more, and finished setting the final strip behind a heavy curtain.
The room was immaculate when he closed the suitcase again.
He exited calmly, locking the door behind him, blending back into the quiet rhythm of the hallway. No rush. No glance back.
Minutes later, the windows blew out.
Glass burst outward in a violent exhale, raining down onto the street below as flames rolled against the frame. Fire licked upward, visible from blocks away, a sudden wound in the hotel's perfect facade.
Screams followed.
Guests poured into the corridors, alarms shrieking as sprinkler systems roared to life. Smoke curled through the upper floors, thick and choking, panic spreading faster than the fire itself.
Outside, sirens wailed as fire engines converged, red lights painting the street in chaos.
In the lobby, the manager stood rigid behind the desk, phone pressed to his ear, eyes fixed on the growing plume of smoke above.
"Yes," he said tightly. "Yes, sir. It's contained—for now."
A pause.
"I'm calling Mr. Powers."
***
Morning had been kind to Mr. Powers.
Sunlight reflected off the pool in clean blue ripples, the water perfectly still except where his feet disturbed it. He sat beneath a wide umbrella, robe open at the collar, newspaper spread across his lap. A glass sweated gently on the table beside him—something cold, expensive, and unnecessary.
He took his time with the headlines. Markets. Politics. A brief mention of unrest downtown that barely registered. Gotham was always restless. That was background noise.
He folded the paper slightly, lifting his drink for a slow sip.
That was when the phone rang.
Mr. Powers glanced at the screen, already annoyed, then answered. "Yes?"
The manager's voice came tight, clipped. Professional—but strained.
"Sir, there's been an incident at the Grand."
Powers' brow furrowed. "Define incident."
"A fire. Upper floors. Contained, but—" a pause, measured, "—it doesn't look accidental."
Silence stretched.
Powers set the glass down carefully. "How bad?"
"No casualties so far. Guests evacuated. Fire department's on site. But the fire didn't spread far something's off."
Mr. Powers frowned, eyes drifting to the far edge of the pool, to the walls beyond it. "I'm on my way," he said flatly. "Lock the building down. I want reports every ten minutes."
"Yes, sir."
The call ended.
Minutes later, he was dressed and moving, the easy calm of his morning replaced by something sharper. He slid into the back of the car as the driver pulled away from the estate gates, security vehicles peeling out behind them.
Powers was already on his phone again, voice low, issuing instructions, stabilizing, controlling—doing what he always did.
They hadn't gone far.
A flash of light caught the edge of his vision, too bright, too sudden. He looked up instinctively.
Headlights.
A horn blared—long, furious, deafening.
A massive truck filled the window, bearing down on them far too fast, grille looming like a wall of steel.
"—wait—" Powers started.
Too late.
The impact hit like an explosion.
Metal screamed as the reinforced car was struck from the side, lifted clean off the road. The world snapped sideways. Glass detonated inward, shards spraying through the cabin like shrapnel. The seatbelt wrenched hard against his chest as the vehicle flipped, weightless for a sickening moment before slamming down again.
The car rolled.
Once. Twice.
Steel folded. The roof crushed inward as they skidded, sparks tearing across asphalt. Everything spun—sky, pavement, sky again—until the final impact sent them crashing onto their side in a shriek of tearing metal.
Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of ruptured systems and the distant echo of the truck's horn fading into chaos.
Mr. Powers hung in his seat, breath knocked from him, vision swimming as broken glass rained down around him.
The day was no longer kind.
***
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The sound was steady, clinical, impossible to ignore.
White light washed the room in sterile calm, machines standing sentinel around the bed. Tubes. Wires. Numbers that rose and fell with mechanical indifference.
Mr. Powers lay unconscious, head bandaged, chest rising shallowly beneath crisp hospital sheets. Bruised. Broken. Alive—for now.
Maria stood at his bedside, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. Her face was composed, controlled, the same expression she wore in boardrooms and galas. Only her eyes betrayed her, flicking constantly to the monitors, counting every breath.
"This facility is secure," the doctor had said.
Private facilities were discrete in all ways
She believed that. She needed to.
A faint movement caught her attention.
Maria turned her head slightly.
On the small table beside the bed lay a thin stack of photographs, face down. She frowned. She hadn't seen anyone enter. No nurse had brought them. No aide had said a word.
Her stomach tightened.
Slowly, she reached out and picked them up.
The first image made her breath catch.
A lounge entrance. Warm lighting. A familiar profile stepping inside.
Kieran Everleigh.
She flipped to the next.
Her entering the same room.
Another.
And another.
Time-stamped. Clean. Clinical. Impossible to deny.
Her fingers went cold as she stared at the evidence of a meeting she knew had been discreet. Quiet. Careful.
This hospital was supposed to be untouchable.
Maria lowered the photos slowly, her expression hardening as the implications sank in.