Chapter 75 The Shattered Throne

The skyline of New York, normally immutable in its gleaming arrogance, now bore a scar—a thick black plume rising from the heart of the city where Blackwood Tower once stood pristine. Emergency helicopters circled the tower's broken crown as fire crews and federal agents barricaded the surrounding streets. Civilians watched from rooftops and sidewalks, eyes wide, mouths agape, as the heart of an empire bled into the sky. In a safehouse four blocks away, the world looked different—smaller, tighter, as if time itself had slowed to let those inside reckon with the choices that had brought them to this moment.