Ethan sat in the car and waited.The building's entrance was dark. The street was quiet. The only sound was the low hum of the engine and the occasional car passing in the distance. He checked his phone. No messages from Claire. No calls.She had been inside for twelve minutes.He thought about going in after her. What if Adrian had come back? What if she was standing in that empty apartment, surrounded by the silence of everything he had taken, unable to move? He reached for the door handle.Then he stopped.She had asked to do this alone. He owed her that.He leaned back and stared at the dashboard.His phone buzzed. Chloe.He didn't answer. He couldn't. Not yet. Not until he knew what to say.She had called four times since he left the restaurant. Four times, and he had let each one go to voicemail. The last message had been short. "Ethan, I need to know if we're still together. Call me."He wasn't ready to call her.He thought about the past few months. The way she had fit herself

The office was too quiet.Ethan sat at his desk, staring at the screen, reading the same line of text for the fourth time. The numbers blurred. His mind was somewhere else. Seraphina was at her desk, typing, not looking at him. She hadn't looked at him since the argument. The silence between them was thick enough to cut.His phone rang.Claire.He answered. "Claire?"Her voice was shaking. Barely there. "Ethan. Someone—someone tried to—" She stopped. He heard her breathing, fast and shallow."Claire, slow down. What happened?""I was at the store. The parking lot. I was walking to my car and this car—it came out of nowhere. It sped toward me. I jumped out of the way. It almost hit me."Ethan was already standing, reaching for his keys. "Are you hurt?""No. I'm okay. I'm at my mother's. I drove here. I didn't know where else to go.""Stay there. I'm coming."He hung up. Grabbed his jacket.Seraphina looked up. "Where are you going?""Claire's in trouble.""What kind of trouble?""Someo

Ethan left his apartment at six-thirty.The sky was already dark, the kind of winter evening that swallowed the light early and didn't give it back. He drove with his hands tight on the wheel, his mind turning over the call with Volkov. Two favors deep. Soon to be three. He thought about the Hyperion, crushed into a cube and shipped to a foundry in Eastern Europe. He thought about the security detail at the event hall, the way Volkov's men had looked at Marcus Voss like he was nothing. He thought about the warehouse on Decker Street, the textile mill that wasn't a textile mill anymore.He had been there twice. Both times, he had walked in clean and walked out owing something.Tonight, he would owe more.The streets grew narrower as he approached the industrial district. Abandoned factories, chain-link fences, buildings with boarded windows. The kind of place where people went to disappear. He turned onto Decker Street and killed his headlights a block before the warehouse, the way he

Ethan sat in the armchair, the weight of Volkov's offer pressing down on him. The smoke from the extinguished cigar still lingered in the air. The gamblers at the far table had gone quiet. The pole dancers had disappeared. The room felt smaller than it had a moment ago.Volkov was watching him. Waiting.Ethan thought about Claire. The way she had looked at him on the couch, wrapped in that blanket, her eyes red, her voice shaking. Someone tried to kill me. He thought about the black sedan, the faceless driver, the way the car had sped toward her like she was nothing. He thought about the men Volkov had already posted at Victoria's house. They would protect her. But protection wasn't enough. The driver was still out there. And whoever sent him was still out there.He thought about his father. The dinners at the Volkov estate. The quiet conversations behind closed doors. His father had made deals with the Volkovs. Had probably owed them favors too. Had probably paid them back in ways Et

Ethan sat in the dark.The gun rested on the coffee table where he had dropped it. Black, matte, small enough to hide, big enough to kill. He stared at it without touching it. The weight of it still pressed against his palm, phantom heat from the barrel that had been tucked into his waistband.He picked up his phone. Called Volkov. The line rang four times and went to voicemail. A generic recording. No name. No company. Just a beep.He called Dimitri. One ring, then a click. Voicemail.He stopped trying.The television was off. The apartment was silent. The city outside his window was dark, the kind of dark that made the streetlights seem like islands in a black sea. He sat on the couch and watched the clock on the wall tick toward morning.---The news broke at six.He turned on the TV. A female reporter stood outside a familiar building. Decker Street. The warehouse. Yellow police tape stretched across the entrance. Flashing lights washed over the brick facade."Police raided an ill