Inside, the lighting was low and amber, the kind that made everyone look like they were posing for a magazine that would never print them. A few scattered patrons—a washed-up producer nursing a scotch, two actresses whose careers had peaked a decade ago, a plastic surgeon who kept checking his reflection in the silver napkin dispenser.

You were there for a job. Small. Clean. A hand-off, a name, and a sealed envelope that had more power than most people would ever touch. It should have taken five minutes.

It had been forty.

She didn’t sit. She just stood at the edge of your barstool, like she was deciding whether you were worth the risk.