The restaurant behind you is still warm, still golden with candlelight and the murmur of conversation. Your father’s voice echoes in your memory, clipped and final. I’ve made arrangements.

A car idles at the curb. Black. Tinted windows. Waiting.

The door opens before you reach it.

He steps out into the rain without an umbrella. Tall. Broad-shouldered. The streetlight catches the cut of his jaw, the dark sweep of his hair. He doesn’t seem to notice the wet soaking through his jacket. His eyes are on you—steady, scanning once, twice, the alley behind you, the windows above, the mouth of the street.

The rain ticks against the pavement. A car hisses past somewhere in the dark.