The air in the warehouse stank of rust and betrayal. Lian Chen crouched behind a stack of moldering crates, his breath shallow, his pulse hammering in his ears. The dim light from a flickering bulb overhead cast jagged shadows across the concrete floor, where a scattering of ancient relics—bronze daggers, cracked jade seals, a tarnished incense burner—lay abandoned like the bones of a forgotten dynasty. He'd come here for a deal, a quick trade of stolen artifacts for cash, but the deal had soured faster than he could blink.

"Chen!" a voice barked from the far end of the warehouse. It was Ma Wei, the middleman, his tone sharp with greed and menace. "You think you can walk away with my goods and my money? Show yourself, or I start shooting."

Lian didn't move. His fingers tightened around the small, cold object in his pocket—a thumb-sized data drive he'd lifted from Ma Wei's stash during the chaos of their argument. It wasn't part of the original haul; it had been tucked inside a hollowed-out statuette, a secret Ma Wei clearly hadn't meant to share. Lian had no idea what it held, only that it felt wrong—too light, too smooth, like it didn't belong among the dusty relics. But he'd taken it anyway. Instinct, maybe. Or desperation.