Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR446F1XQR5YPPWN20D1DC

The last of the Tuesday drinkers had trickled out into the Soho night, leaving behind the ghosts of their conversations and the scent of stale beer. Rory ran a damp cloth over the mahogany bar, the motion a familiar, soothing rhythm. She worked the rag in slow circles, erasing the rings left by sweating glasses, the smear of a stray fingerprint. The old wood gleamed under the low lights, reflecting the rows of inverted glasses that hung above her head. From the end of the bar, Silas turned a page of his book, the soft rasp of paper the only sound besides the low hum of the coolers and the quiet melancholy of a jazz piano drifting from the speakers. His signet ring caught the light as he shifted his hand. He hadn't asked her to help close up, but she often did. The quiet ritual was a buffer between the frenetic energy of her delivery shifts and the solitude of her flat upstairs. Here, in the dim, map-lined confines of The Raven’s Nest, the world felt manageable. The bell above the door chimed, a sharp, intrusive sound in the near-silence. Rory didn't look up, just kept wiping. It was probably just one of Silas’s late-night contacts, heading for the hidden room. “Just one, if you’re still serving?” The voice was cultured, carefully modulated, but underneath it lay an accent she hadn’t heard in five years. A Cardiff lilt, ironed out but not quite erased. Rory’s hand stilled on the bar. A cold knot tightened in her stomach. Slowly, she lifted her head. He stood by the entrance, shrugging out of a tailored wool coat that probably cost more than her last three months’ rent. He was taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader under the crisp white shirt. But the set of his jaw, the thick, dark hair that always fell over his forehead—that was the same. Her mind spun, trying to slot the face into the present moment. It was like finding a faded photograph tucked into a new book. Silas glanced from the man to Rory, his hazel eyes missing nothing. “What can I get you?” he asked, his voice calm and even. “Whisky. Macallan, if you have it. Neat.” The man slid onto a stool at the far end of the bar, placing a slim leather briefcase on the floor beside him. He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it made Rory’s breath catch. He hadn’t seen her yet. He was looking at the black-and-white photographs on the wall, the ones of old spies and forgotten cityscapes. It was Liam. Liam Rhys. Part of the old crew, the university debate team star, the one everyone said was destined for Parliament. The one who had been Evan’s best friend. Silas placed a heavy crystal tumbler on the bar and poured a measure of whisky. Liam picked it up, swirled the amber liquid, and as he turned back towards the room, his eyes met hers. Recognition dawned, followed by a wave of disbelief that washed over his features. “My God,” he breathed. “Rory? Rory Carter?” Rory gave a tight, thin smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hello, Liam.” He stood, leaving his drink untouched, and walked down the length of the bar towards her. He smelled of expensive cologne and damp wool. “I don’t believe it. What are you… what are you doing here?” He gestured around the empty bar as if it were a strange and exotic exhibit. “I work here,” she said. It wasn’t the truth, not really, but it was simpler. She felt Silas’s gaze on her, a quiet, steadying presence. “You work in a bar?” The question wasn’t malicious, just genuinely baffled. He looked at her hands, still clutching the rag. Her nails were short, clean, but unpolished. He was probably used to the perfectly manicured nails of the law clerks and paralegals in his circle. “Sometimes,” she said, dropping the rag into the sink behind the bar. “Mostly I’m a delivery driver.” He blinked. “A courier? For which firm? I’m with Davies & Stern while I’m in town, maybe I could…” “For a Chinese restaurant,” Rory cut in, her voice flat. She watched the information settle behind his eyes. Watched him recalibrate his understanding of who she had become. The star Pre-Law student, daughter of Brendan Carter, QC, now delivered sweet and sour pork on a moped. An awkward silence stretched between them. The jazz piano filled the space, a mournful, meandering tune. “Well,” he finally said, forcing a smile that looked painful. “You look… well, Rory. You really do.” “So do you, Liam. The barrister’s life suits you.” She looked pointedly at his silk tie, the gleam of the gold watch on his wrist when his cuff slid back. He looked exactly like the person they were all supposed to become. He had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. “It’s been good. Busy. I’m up from Cardiff for a case at the Old Bailey.” He took a tentative step closer. “We all wondered what happened to you. You just… vanished. Eva was worried sick.” “Eva knows I’m fine,” Rory said, her tone sharp enough to stop him from taking another step. “She’s the one who told me to come to London.” “Right.” He nodded, processing this. “Of course.” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Evan was… he was a wreck when you left. He had no idea why. We all thought…” Rory felt the cold knot in her stomach turn to ice. She picked up a clean glass and began polishing it with a dry cloth, her movements sharp and precise. She could feel the small, crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist tingling, a phantom ache from a childhood fall that suddenly felt new again. “You thought what, Liam?” she asked, her voice dangerously quiet. She didn’t look at him, focusing instead on the perfect, smear-free curve of the glass in her hand. “I don’t know. That it was the pressure. Uni. Your dad’s expectations. Nobody knew what to think.” He lowered his voice. “He said you just packed a bag and left. Changed your number, blockedeveryone. It was… brutal.” Brutal. The word hung in the air between them, obscene. Rory finally stopped polishing the glass and placed it on the shelf with a soft, definitive click. She turned and met his gaze head-on. Her bright blue eyes were like chips of ice. “Evan’s version of the story,” she said, not as a question. “That’s the one you all heard.” Liam shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He looked uncomfortable, trapped between the man he called his friend and the woman standing before him, a ghost from his past who looked at him with a stranger’s eyes. “It was the only one we had, Rory.” “And you never thought to question it?” “He was our friend.” “He was my boyfriend,” she countered, her voice low and steady. “And you were my friend too, Liam. Did you ever, once, pick up the phone and try my parents? Did you ask Eva what really happened?” He looked down at his perfectly polished shoes. The silence was his answer. He had believed the easy story, the one that didn’t force him to look too closely at the darkness hiding behind his friend’s charming smile. Regret, she saw now, flickered in his eyes. The regret of inaction, of willful ignorance. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, finally meeting her gaze again. “We were young. Stupid. If something was wrong, I wish you’d told us.” Rory laughed, a short, bitter sound. “Told you? Told the people who went for pints with him every Friday while I was at home figuring out how to hide a black eye? What would I have said, Liam? And what would you have done?” He flinched, the colour draining from his face. “A black… Rory, I had no idea. He swore he never…” “Of course he did.” She leaned forward on the bar, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. “That’s what they do. And people like you believe them, because it’s easier. You get to keep your friend, and I get to disappear.” She straightened up, her expression cooling over again. She felt oddly distant, as if she were dissecting a legal argument. “I didn’t just leave, Liam. I escaped.” He stared at her, the confident barrister stripped away, leaving a young, uncertain man in his place. He saw her now, not as the girl he’d known, but as the woman she’d been forced to become. The change wasn’t in the job or the city. It was in her eyes. The cool, appraising way she looked at him held a weight he couldn’t comprehend. “I… I didn’t know,” he stammered. It was a pathetic defense, and they both knew it. “No,” she agreed. “You didn’t.” He fumbled in his pocket, pulling out a business card and placing it on the bar. The crisp white rectangle looked alien on the dark, worn wood. “If you ever need anything,” he said, his voice strained. “A lawyer. Anything. Just call.” Rory looked at the card, at the embossed letters spelling out his name, his success. She didn’t touch it. Liam drained his whisky in one quick, nervous motion, the ice clinking against the glass. He placed the tumbler back down with a thud. “It was… it was good to see you, Rory.” “Was it?” she asked, the question hanging unanswered in the space between them. He gave a jerky nod, grabbed his coat and briefcase, and walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle, turned back one last time. The green neon of the bar’s sign washed over him, casting him in a sickly, artificial light. He looked like a stranger. Then he was gone, the chime of the bell a final, lonely note in the quiet room. Rory stood motionless for a long time, staring at the door. The past was a different country, they said. She’d just had her passport stamped at the border. She felt Silas move beside her. He picked up Liam’s business card, held it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, then dropped it into the rubbish bin behind the bar. He slid a glass of water in front of her. His hand rested on the polished wood for a second, his silver ring a small, solid point of light in the dimness. He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. Rory wrapped her fingers around the cool glass, the condensation a welcome shock against her skin. She took a sip, the water clean and cold, washing away the bitter taste of the past.