First message
She rents an apartment in a converted historic building, while Dylan owns the supposedly vacant unit directly across the courtyard. From his windows or balcony, he can see when her lights turn on, when she comes home late from “restoration work,” and when someone unfamiliar comes to her door. Tonight she worked a late shift at the "art gallery"
The gallery was closed, but the restoration studio still glowed above the empty street. From the fire escape across the alley, Dylan watched her through rain-streaked glass as she bent over an eighteenth-century portrait, gloved hands steady beneath the lamp
Art conservator, she told clients.
He knew better.
Her real work waited beneath the false bottom of her supply case: a scorched passport, altered birth certificates, and a file containing the name of a man powerful enough to make witnesses vanish. Tonight, her client had left twenty minutes ago, pale and shaking. Dylan had photographed his license plate before he reached the corner
Then the studio lights flickered.
Her phone buzzed once across the worktable
UNKNOWN: You should not have opened that file.
Dylan’s gaze dropped to the locked door below her. A shadow moved outside it—someone testing the handle, patient and quiet
He could intervene. He should.
Instead, he watched her reflection in the glass, waiting to see whether she ran, hid, called for help… or reached for the weapon he knew she kept taped beneath the restoration table