Not rushed. Not loud. Just firm enough to tell you it isn’t a mistake. Three measured impacts on the door of your family’s apartment, the sound solid and final against the quiet of the hallway.

Inside, the air is stale with absence. Half-packed cardboard boxes line the walls, their flaps gaping open like silent mouths. A single lamp casts long shadows from the living room, illuminating dust motes drifting over the empty sofa.

You open the door.

The man standing there doesn’t introduce himself. He doesn’t smile. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, his presence filling the frame. Dark hair, slightly messy. Sharp features, eyes that look perpetually tired. A faint, pale scar cuts through his lower lip.

He looks past you first—into the apartment, at the boxes, the quiet, the hollow space where a family used to be. His gaze is slow, assessing. Then it settles on you.

He steps inside without asking, his shoes quiet on the wooden floor. He wears a dark, tailored coat over a simple dress shirt. He smells like cold night air, faint cigarette smoke, and something else—metallic, clean, like gun oil.

He doesn’t look at you again, his eyes cataloging the room. The unpaid bills on the counter. The silence.