He took a final drag, flicked the cigarette to the floor, and ground it out beneath his shoe.
"Look," he said, voice dropping. "You work for me because you're smart. Loyal. And you don't ask questions that make me regret hiring you."
"I've never asked a question you didn't already know the answer to."
He smiled thinly. "That's why I like you."
She stepped back. "Then act like it. Because if Romano makes a move, and you let it happen — don't think I won't find out why."
Navarro's smile faded.
"You really think you can threaten me?"
"I don't need to," she said, turning away. "You're already scared."
He said something as she walked off — she didn't hear it.
Didn't want to.
She tossed the flower box into the nearest dumpster before getting into her car. No ceremony. No second glance.
The engine started. The music came on.
Static.
She turned the dial, adjusted the station.
Still static.
The silence roared louder than anything else.
.....
Lina's apartment wasn't fancy.
One-bedroom, fourth floor, old building with a fire escape that creaked in the wind. A place where no one asked questions and everyone minded their own goddamn business.
She liked it that way.
Tonight, though, the air felt too still — like the silence inside had teeth.
She double-locked the front door. Checked the window latches. Poured herself a glass of wine, left it untouched. Changed into a tank top and sleep shorts, then paced the perimeter of her space like it was a war map.
There was no knock. No message. No new note.
Just… stillness.
Until 1:08 AM.
That's when the handle turned.
Softly. Slowly.
No knock. No voice. Just the subtle click, click of metal meeting resistance.
She froze, the hairs on her arms standing up like a chorus of alarms. Her phone was in her hand before she realized she'd grabbed it.
She crept to the door, bare feet soundless on the hardwood. Through the peephole, she saw no one — but that didn't mean nothing was there.
She held her breath.
The handle didn't move again.
Seconds passed.
Then footsteps — faint, fading — moved away down the hall.
She turned off all the lights.
She waited by the window, parting the curtain just an inch.
Across the street, beneath the broken streetlamp, stood a man. Too far to make out his face. Just close enough to see the shape of him. Still. Watching.
He didn't move.
She reached for the landline on instinct, the burner phone she kept for emergencies. Dialed the building's private security line — a number Navarro paid for directly.
No answer.
She tried again. Still nothing.
It rang five times and clicked to silence.
No voicemail. No operator.
Just dead air.
She stared at the man under the streetlamp.
He hadn't moved.
She didn't sleep that night.
Not out of fear — not exactly.
It was something else.
A feeling that the rules of the game had shifted — and she'd just been moved two spaces closer to checkmate.
By morning, the city had resumed its usual lie: busy, indifferent, full of noise and motion to cover all the things no one wanted to say out loud.
Lina dressed in a tailored black turtleneck, long coat, and boots that clicked with purpose. Hair pinned tight. Red lipstick — armor, not invitation. Sleep hadn't come, but adrenaline made a decent stand-in.
She took a detour before work. Not for caffeine — she didn't even like coffee — but for clarity.
She stepped into Etta & Rye, the upscale café near Central where Navarro's people never went. Too clean, too rich, too transparent. She liked the anonymity of it. Glass windows. Open layout. Fewer shadows to worry about.
Or so she thought.
The moment she stepped in, her eyes scanned automatically — and stopped.
Luca was seated by the window, newspaper folded, espresso untouched.
Not hiding. Not pretending.
He wore a charcoal overcoat, lapels open, shirt collar crisp like he hadn't broken a sweat in years. No guards flanked him. No entourage. Just him — like he'd been waiting.
His gaze met hers without surprise.
No wave. No nod.
Just a smile.
Small. Unapologetic.
And intimate, like they'd shared a secret instead of a hallway.
Lina stood still for exactly three seconds.
Then she turned on her heel and walked out.
She didn't look back. She didn't need to.
He'd expected her reaction — just like everything else he did.
And somehow, that was worse than being caught off guard.
Lina didn't speak to anyone when she arrived at the office.
She went straight to her desk, jaw tight, coffee cup still full in her hand. She wasn't sure what she was more angry about — that Luca had been waiting at the café, or that she'd walked out first, like a pawn retreating from a king.
She dropped into her chair and reached for her keyboard, ready to bury herself in logistics, contracts, anything that didn't have his eyes.
But then she saw it.
Her computer screen was on.
It shouldn't have been.
She always locked it. Not out of paranoia, but habit — the kind of muscle memory drilled in by years of being around men who didn't respect boundaries, digital or otherwise.
The screen saver was gone.
The desktop was bare — except for a new folder in the upper left corner. It wasn't there yesterday.
The folder name was simple: REYES
No caps lock. Just precision.
Her fingers hovered for a second, then clicked.
Inside, only one file.
A photo.
Old. Scanned. Slightly grainy. A girl of about ten, in a worn red dress, standing in front of a chain-link fence beside a boy a few years older — protective arm slung over her shoulder, both of them squinting against the sun.
Her brother.
Before everything went wrong.
Her throat closed like a vice.
No one had this photo.
It wasn't online. It wasn't part of any file Navarro held. It had been taken by a neighbor, long dead. The only copy had been buried in a shoebox in her mother's closet — back before that closet had gone up in flames with half the apartment.
She didn't remember breathing.
Then she saw the sticky note.
Neon yellow. Pressed to the bottom of her monitor.
You're not invisible.
– L