Luri's apartment sat on the twelfth floor of a modest building in the city's quieter district—a place where the hustle of government agents, mercenaries, and twisted geniuses didn't quite reach. Or at least, not directly.
Inside, the apartment smelled faintly of coffee and fresh fabric softener. The curtains fluttered in the wind, and the hum of a fan rotated quietly in the corner. Books and case files were scattered on the coffee table, some open, some bookmarked with sticky notes, others scribbled over with highlighter pens in Luri's neat handwriting.
Diana Sebanil, tall and composed, sat cross-legged on the couch. Her dark burgundy blouse and tailored trousers made her look more like a royal emissary than a rogue investigator. But her narrowed eyes said she hadn't slept properly in days. She held a half-empty mug of strong tea and stared at the board pinned with documents about the ongoing case—chief among them, the Apex Lab and Doctor Naehr's twisted genome project.
