TD

They say every story has a beginning. Mine didn’t. Mine had a warning. I just didn’t know it at the time. ⸻ The first time I saw Adrian Vale, it was raining. Not the soft kind of rain that makes London look beautiful. It was the kind that turned the streets black beneath the streetlights and blurred everything beyond the glass of the taxi window. I remember watching the city disappear behind streaks of rain, my fingers wrapped tightly around my phone. I remember thinking that I should have gone home. I remember thinking that something felt wrong. And then I saw him. Standing beneath the entrance of a private hotel, dressed entirely in black. He wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t speaking. He wasn’t even looking at anyone. And somehow, everyone around him seemed to know exactly who he was. People moved out of his way without being asked. A man stepped aside before Adrian even reached him. A woman lowered her voice as he passed. And then his eyes lifted. Straight toward me. My breath caught. For one strange second, the entire world seemed to go quiet. His expression didn’t change. He simply looked at me. Like he knew me. Like he’d been waiting for me. Then my taxi drove past. And he disappeared behind the rain. ⸻ I should have forgotten him. I tried. For three weeks, I didn’t see him again. I convinced myself that the entire thing had been nothing more than a strange moment with a stranger. Until the night someone left a black envelope outside my apartment. No name. No address. Just my initials written across the front. Inside was a single photograph. My hands went cold when I saw it. It was me. Standing outside the hotel three weeks earlier. The photograph had been taken from across the street. On the back, written in black ink, were six words. You were never supposed to see him. I read it twice. Then a third time. My phone rang. Unknown number. I stared at the screen before answering. “Hello?” Silence.