Chapter Two - Simon
I stay in the alley long after the body cools. The blood trickles along the cracked concrete in slow lines, catching on bits of dirt and broken glass, spreading toward the gutter.
My men drag the dead weight toward the wall and cover it with a tarp, but I barely register the movement. I’m still staring at the spot where she hid.
She moved quietly. Most people don’t. Fear makes them clumsy, loud, stupid. They freeze or scream or run without looking where they’re going. This woman didn’t do any of that. She didn’t even breathe wrong. She stayed still. She watched.
I felt her before I saw anything. A shift in the air. A prickle at the edge of my awareness. The faintest impression of someone holding their breath. That’s what made me turn. Not sound. Not sight. Instinct.
And she was there. Pressed behind that dumpster, tense as a wire, but not falling apart. Her fear was real; anyone would be afraid after watching a man get shot. Yet there was something underneath it, something sharper. Curiosity. Focus. She wasn’t only scared. She was studying us.
People don’t study me. They avoid my eyes, or they raise guns, or they start begging. This one… she observed. She kept her head level. She tracked the movements in the alley like she was making notes in her mind.
It unsettles me more than I want to admit.
The shooter snaps his glove off and tosses it aside, waiting for orders. I don’t give any yet. I’m still thinking about her. Women in this world panic before they think. She didn’t. She watched me the way I watch threats.
I don’t like that I can’t see her face clearly.
I caught enough to know she’s young and smaller than she thinks she is.
Hair a warm shade—brown, maybe auburn—pulled back but loose around her face.
Jeans. Sneakers. A notebook clutched to her chest. Not the clothing of someone sent to bait me. Not the posture of someone trained.
Something about her presence was wrong in its own way. Too deliberate.
I finally turn from the alley, leaving the tarp and the body behind. My men follow, keeping a respectful distance. They know when I’m thinking.
We reach the car parked a block down. A black sedan, indistinct and forgettable. I slide into the back seat and lean into the silence. My hands rest on my knees, palms open, relaxed, though my mind keeps circling the same question.
Was she sent here?
If she was, it was sloppy. No backup, and certainly no surveillance equipment I could see. No trained stillness in her muscles. She trembled, yes, but her eyes—what I glimpsed of them—stayed sharp. Observant. Calm in a way I haven’t seen outside people who’ve spent years being forced to be calm.
If she wasn’t sent, then she walked into this by accident. A coincidence. Wrong place, wrong time.
I don’t believe in coincidences.
Sergei slides into the passenger seat and glances at me through the rearview mirror. His voice stays quiet. “You want us to track her down now? Clean it up?”
The urge to say yes rises immediately. That would be easy. Clean. Practical. Witnesses don’t last long in my world. Loose ends strangle people later.
There’s one small thing, though. If she were a threat, she would’ve acted differently. If she were bait, she’d have looked at me the way people look at danger. She looked at me like a puzzle.
“Not yet,” I say.
Sergei turns slightly. “You sure?”
I settle back against the leather seat and let my gaze drift to the window.
The city rushes by in streaks of light. My reflection stares back at me, jaw set, eyes narrowed.
I can feel her lingering in my thoughts, that quiet presence behind the dumpster, the way she slipped out of the alley as soon as she sensed the chance.
“She wasn’t armed,” I say. “No comms. No partner in sight.”
“She still saw everything.”
“I know.”
He waits for my verdict, elbows braced on his knees.
I think about the way she crouched there, silent but attentive. I think about the small tilt of her head, the way she reacted more to me than to the gunshot. She noticed hierarchy. She noticed control. She noticed me.
That isn’t something I can ignore.
“Find out who she is,” I say. “Find her address, her schedule, her contacts. Quietly.”
Sergei nods. Another man in the front passenger seat leans back to hear better.
“Do we take her in?” he asks.
“No.”
They wait for the rest.
I tap a finger against my knee, picturing the alley again.
Her breath was shallow but steady. Her eyes moved fast, cataloging details.
If she were planning to run to the police, she’d have stayed close enough to collect evidence.
She wouldn’t have slipped out and blended into foot traffic like someone trained to survive.
She made herself invisible the second she got distance.
Someone who hides like that isn’t planning to talk.
Someone who watches like that? She’ll think about what she saw. She’ll replay the moment. She’ll obsess over the parts she didn’t understand. And I want to see how she handles that.
“Keep eyes on her movements,” I say. “I want to know where she goes, who she calls, what she does when she thinks no one is watching.”
“What if she talks?” Sergei asks.
“She won’t. She’s too scared.”
He waits, then prompts, “Orders?”
My attention shifts to the windshield, where the streetlights flicker across the glass.
She’s out there somewhere, probably convincing herself that she imagined the weight of my stare.
She’ll tell herself it was shock. Fear. An adrenaline spike.
She’ll come up with logical explanations for the way her skin crawled.
But she’ll still look over her shoulder tonight. And tomorrow. And every time she steps into a crowded street. She’ll feel me even when she doesn’t see me.
“Don’t approach her,” I say, voice low but firm. “Don’t speak to her. Don’t touch her.”
The men nod.
“Just report.”
The engine hums as we melt back into traffic. My men talk quietly in the front. I stay silent in the back seat, watching the city blur by, the pulse of neon lights flickering against the glass.
***
The drive back to the warehouse is quiet except for the low rumble of engines on the expressway.
My men talk in short bursts, updating each other on routes and assignments, but their voices fade into the background.
My focus stays locked on the image in my head—the small figure slipping out of the alley, shoulders tense, steps quick but controlled.
When we arrive, the doors slide shut behind us with a metallic groan. The security room is dim, lit only by the glow of monitors. I step inside and the tech on duty straightens immediately. He knows better than to speak unless spoken to.
“Pull footage from the alley and surrounding blocks,” I say. “Last thirty minutes.”
He nods and gets to work. Lines of time stamps flick across the screens. Grayscale snapshots of the neighborhood appear, each angle slightly warped by the old cameras. I stand behind his chair, arms crossed, watching as the footage scrolls.
There—she appears at the edge of one camera. A small shape walking briskly down the sidewalk. Her posture is tight. Her hand keeps brushing her bag like she’s reassuring herself it’s there. She looks over her shoulder once, barely more than a glance, but enough to see the tension in her jaw.
She’s shaken. Anyone would be. But she isn’t falling apart. She keeps her pace steady, doesn’t stop to sob or freeze or look for a police officer. She blends into the city like she’s done it before.
I lean closer to the screen. “Zoom in.”
The tech complies. The footage blurs for a moment, then sharpens enough to make out her features. Soft lines. Wide eyes. Not hardened by the world, though there’s a familiarity in the way she checks her surroundings. Street-smart, but not street-born.
Her innocence stands out in sharp contrast to the kind of people I deal with every day. It’s almost jarring. Everyone in my world has rough edges, dark histories, blood on their hands. She looks like she came from somewhere quieter.
The tech scrubs forward through the angles until she’s out of view. I straighten slowly, folding my hands behind my back. My curiosity should concern me more than it does. It’s inconvenient. Dangerous. Pointless. But it’s there, humming beneath everything else.
I tell myself it’s caution. Loose ends become threats. Witnesses can destabilize everything I built. Studying her is a logical step.
Except logic doesn’t explain the way her image clings to my thoughts long after the footage ends.
“Save all copies,” I say.
“Yes, sir.”
I leave the security room and take the stairs up to my office.
Each step echoes in the concrete corridor.
Sunlight still creeps through the high windows, casting long lines across the floor.
Papers sit untouched on my desk. A half-finished glass of water rests beside a stack of files. None of it holds my attention.
I should be working. There are deals to finalize, threats to eliminate, territories to maintain. Instead, my thoughts circle her.
Why didn’t she run sooner?
She had the chance. A sane person would’ve backed away the second they heard shouting. A terrified person would’ve stumbled into the street screaming. She didn’t do either.
Why was she looking at me instead of the gun?
Anyone else would’ve stared at the weapon or the body. Her attention was on the man behind the act. On me. She recognized the true danger immediately, even from a distance. That is not the instinct of someone oblivious to power. That’s someone who understands it.
Why did her presence feel deliberate?
Her clothes didn’t suggest she planned this. Neither did her expression when the shot fired. Her behavior… it wasn’t random panic. It was measured. Controlled. She reacted in a way that made sense to her mind, not her fear.
I sit in my chair and rest my elbows on the desk, fingers pressed to my temples.
She doesn’t fit. Not into my world. Not into the usual patterns. Not into the simple explanations I prefer. Bystanders aren’t careful. They’re chaotic. She was not.
Her calmness lingers in my mind like a thorn I can’t dislodge. It unsettles me, not because it threatens me, but because I can’t predict it yet.
Evening settles in by the time I finally rise.
The warehouse hums with activity below, but I ignore the noise.
I walk to the tall windows overlooking the industrial yard outside.
The sky glows dim orange as the sun fades behind the skyline.
Streetlights flicker on, one by one, dotting the city with pockets of gold.
I stand there, hands in my pockets, thinking of her small frame vanishing into a subway station. Of the way she kept her breathing even. Of the way she hugged that notebook like a shield.
It would be easy to have her brought to me. A quick grab, a quiet room, a simple conversation. I’ve done it before.
The thought doesn’t sit right. I don’t want her in a room terrified of me. I want to see how she behaves when the fear fades. When she thinks the danger passed her by.
I want to know if that sharp mind of hers keeps turning after the shock settles.
My reflection stares back at me from the window, eyes narrowed. I look like a man debating something he shouldn’t be.
Approach her directly?
I imagine the scene. Her startled expression. Her instinctive retreat. The way she’d search my face for answers she wouldn’t get. It would push her further away, make her watchful for the wrong reasons.
Or stay in the shadows a little longer?
Let her guard lower naturally. Let her routine reveal itself. Let her tell me who she is without even knowing she’s doing it. Let my men stay invisible. Let me stay a ghost in her periphery.
My jaw ticks once as I exhale, breath fogging the cool glass.
“She shouldn’t have seen that.”
The words leave me quietly, almost a whisper.
Beneath the warning—buried under the logic, the caution, the risk—there’s something else. A pull I don’t recognize. An interest I shouldn’t have. A slow, instinctive urge to follow the thread she unknowingly tied between us.