Back home, the mailbox carried nothing but ordinary bills, which somehow felt like a new threat. He moved the key and medallion to his grandfather’s old storm shelter; headlights swept the trees before he’d finished hiding them.
The car idled, lingered, left. He reclaimed the key, suddenly unwilling to let anything important live where he couldn’t hear it breathe.
When he checked the warehouse again after midnight, the outer door stood open, and fresh boot prints scuffed the concrete. The vault room had been ransacked, ledgers gutted, but the chest still held—locked, patient.
Rowan set the medallion, turned it. A heavy click rolled through the steel like thunder deciding to be a door.
