Chapter 174 - 174: An Invasion From the Sea

Lightning stitched the low clouds in pale, crooked seams, and for a heartbeat the rain turned to silver—each drop a thin wire in the air—before darkness swallowed it again. August warmth still clung to the town even at midnight, heavy and damp against the skin, but the weather had been relentless for three days. The storm didn't rage so much as endure: patient, exhausting, a siege made of water.

Rain slid down the hotel windows in steady sheets, smearing the promenade lamps into blurred halos of yellow. Beyond the glass lay the long strip of beach, and beyond that the Sea of Marmara—black and restless, chopped by wind, gnawing at the breakwater with a dull, repetitive slap. Thunder rolled over the water, low and distant, so much like artillery that the mind kept trying to pin it to a direction, to a range, to a map.

Sergeant Günther stood at the third-floor window, boots planted wide on polished boards, hands resting on the sill as if he could brace the whole building with his grip. The room was too fine for the men inside it—thick curtains, a patterned rug, the faint perfume of old soap sunk into expensive sheets.

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