Gale-force winds raged over New York.
Piercing sonic booms piled one upon another, like thunder from the highest heavens, forcibly tearing through the thick night.
The villa's second floor.
The enormous floor-to-ceiling window exploded, the entire pane of reinforced glass collapsing inward.
Violent air currents swept up the glass shards and shredded the heavy velvet curtains into rags that flew everywhere.
In the center of the living room.
Madelyn was bound tightly to a rosewood dining chair with several finger-thick nylon ropes.
Three large blocks of yellowish-brown military C4 had been crudely taped to her chest.
At the center of the explosives, a red digital countdown ticked away.
A baby carrier sat on a coffee table nearby.
Teddy slept soundly with a silicone pacifier in his mouth, utterly unaware of the lethal danger around him.
Butcher stood behind the sofa.
The black trench coat he always wore hung open, revealing a badly wrinkled floral shirt.
His right hand was raised high, his rough thumb pressing firmly against a black dead man's detonator.
He had played every last card.
Butcher stared coldly at the broken glass covering the floor.
The entire team had been exposed, Frenchie and Mother's Milk's fates were unknown, and Hughie had gone his own way.
The whole team had become sewer rats wanted across America.
Despair had long since ceased to exist.
Now, all that filled his chest was malice so pure it had turned black.
Since everything was ruined, before he went to hell, he would drag this monster along to experience the agony of being stripped of skin and bone.
The crunch of leather boots crushing glass came from the darkness.
Homelander stepped into the living room.
His spotless stars-and-stripes suit stood in stark contrast to the wreckage filling the room.
Faster than expected.
The