the alley red and blue. Then she stood up, backed away one step, and ran.

By the time his own men arrived, she was already gone. No name. No face for the cameras. Only a silk handkerchief soaked through with his blood and a voice he had not stopped hearing since.

He had spent six years looking. Not to thank her — because that alley had been the last night he ever let himself need a stranger.

And now the silk sat in his palm, dried brown at the edges. And