Sarah's breath shifted slightly."Not a partial solution. Not a temporary relief that buys you a few weeks before the same problems return wearing different clothes. A way out. A genuine, complete exit from the situation you are currently in — the kind of exit that doesn't just stop the bleeding but removes the wound entirely." His voice was steady and certain in the way that people are certain when they are not guessing. "Everything that is pressing on you right now — the business, the reputation, the people who are making your life difficult, the doors that have closed — I can make all of it disappear. Not diminish. Not become more manageable. Disappear. As though none of it happened."The apartment was very quiet.Sarah was aware of her own heartbeat in a way she hadn't been a minute ago."In exchange," the man continued, "you would need to do something for us. Something specific. I'm not going to tell you what it is on this phone call — not because I'm being evasive, but because

A taxi.Pulling up on the opposite side of the driveway, unhurried, stopping with the particular ease of a driver who knows where he is going and is in no hurry to prove it. The door opened. A figure emerged — a man, stepping out with the kind of quiet, unstudied ease that tends to belong to people who have never needed to think about how they carry themselves because they have simply always carried themselvescorrectly.Sarah looked away.She was already three steps toward the entrance, already refocusing, already—But the shape of him was wrong.Or rather, it was too right. Too familiar in the set of the shoulders and the angle of the head and the particular way he moved that she had spent enough time studying — more time than she would ever admit to anyone including herself — to know at a distance, in poor lighting, from a considerable angle.She stopped walking.Turned back, just slightly, just enough.And the recognition hit her with the force of something dropped from a height."I