AI The glass shattered against the floorboards, spraying amber liquid across Aurora’s worn leather boots.
"Watch it, Rory!"
Silas barked the command from behind the brass-railings of the bar, his hazel eyes narrowing as he swiped a greyish damp cloth over the mahogany. He didn't look up, but the silver signet ring on his right hand caught the green glow of the neon sign outside, flashing like a warning beacon .
"My fault, Si. Floor’s slick."
Aurora reached for a handful of napkins, kneeling to soak up the spilled whiskey. The Raven’s Nest smelled of cloves, old paper, and the damp wool of Soho's evening crowd. It was a slow Tuesday, the kind where the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to stretch and yawn, yet the air felt heavy, charged with the static of something she couldn't quite name .
The door creaked. The bell didn't chime; it groaned, a rusty metal-on-metal protest that Silas always promised to oil but never did. A man stepped inside, shaking a black designer umbrella. He wore a charcoal wool overcoat that cost more than Aurora’s flat and her motorbike combined.
Aurora froze, a sodden napkin clutched in her fist. The crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist throbbed , a phantom pulse she hadn't felt in years.
"We’re closing in ten," Silas said, his voice a low rumble. He leaned heavily on his right leg, sparing the injured left knee.
"I only need five."
The voice was sandpaper on silk . Deep, smooth, but carrying a jagged edge that sliced through Aurora’s composure. She didn't look up. She kept her eyes fixed on the puddle of whiskey, watching the way the green neon light fractured in the droplets.
"Evan."
The name felt like a stone in her mouth. She spat it out before she could think to hold it back.
The man in the charcoal coat stopped. His shoes were polished Italian leather, gleaming wickedly against the distressed wood of the floor. He didn't move for a long moment, the silence between them stretching until it threatened to snap.
"Laila?"
"Don't call me that. You know better."
Aurora stood up, her black shoulder-length hair falling forward to shroud her face. She dropped the wet napkins into a bin and finally met his gaze.
Evan looked older, though not in the way men usually did. He hadn't softened. The jagged edges of the boy she’d fled in Cardiff had been honed into something sharper, professional, and vastly more dangerous. His eyes, once frantic and wild, were now cold glass.
"You look different," Evan said. He moved toward the bar, ignoring Silas entirely. "The hair. The clothes. You look like you’re trying to disappear."
"I did vanish. For three years."
"London’s a small city for people who don't want to be found."
Silas cleared his throat, a sharp, guttural sound. He set a glass on the bar—clean, empty, and pointedly waiting.
"The lady asked you not to use that name." Silas spoke with the quiet authority of a man who had seen bodies dropped into the Vltava and finished his lunch. "And I don't care much for people who loom."
Evan glanced at Silas, a flicker of irritation crossing his handsome, groomed face. He dismissed the older man as a mere publican, a mistake Aurora knew would be his last if he pushed.
"This is private, grandad."
"Funny. This is my bar. Nothing here is private unless I say so."
Aurora stepped into the light, her bright blue eyes hard. "It’s fine, Silas. He was just leaving."
"I'm not," Evan said. He reached out as if to touch her arm, but Aurora flinched back, her hand instinctively finding the heavy iron bottle opener she kept in her apron pocket. He noticed. His hand hovered in the air, a pale, useless thing, before he dropped it. "I saw Eva. She told me you were in Soho. She told me you were happy."
"Eva’s a lid that leaks. I’ll have to fix that."
"She’s worried about you, Rory. We all are. Your father—"
"Don't you dare bring Brendan into this. You lost the right to speak his name the night you broke my ribs."
The air in the Raven’s Nest grew cold. A couple in a booth near the back suddenly found their coats and scurried out, the tension in the room reaching a boiling point. Silas didn't move, but his hand had disappeared beneath the bar. Aurora knew the short-barreled shotgun lived right next to the lemons.
Evan sighed, a sound of practiced disappointment. "I was a different person then. We were kids. We were volatile."
"You were a monster. I was a victim. There's a difference in the vocabulary, Evan. I suggest you learn it."
"Look at you." Evan gestured to her damp delivery uniform, the Golden Empress logo peeling on her chest. "Pre-Law at Cardiff. You were going to be a barrister. You were going to change things. Now you’re delivering cold noodles and scrubbing floors for a man with a limp."
"I'm free," Aurora whispered. "I've never been more successful."
Evan laughed, a short, sharp bark that lacked any real mirth. He leaned against the bar, his movements fluid and arrogant.
"You're hiding. This isn't a life, it's a bunker. How long can you stay underground before the air turns sour?"
"As long as it takes for the world to forget you exist."
"I've changed, Aurora. I'm in private equity now. I have a firm. I have a life that would have suited the woman you were meant to be."
Aurora walked closer to him, stopping only when she could smell his expensive cologne—sandalwood and arrogance. She looked at his hands. Manicured. Soft. No scars.
"The woman I was meant to be died in that flat in Cardiff," she said, her voice steady and devoid of the tremors that used to haunt her. "The woman standing here is someone you don't know. You have no leverage here. You have no power."
"I have your address."
The silence returned, but this time it was different. It wasn't the heavy weight of regret; it was the cold, hollow ring of a threat.
Silas stepped around the bar. He didn't rush. He moved with a slow, deliberate cadence, his slight limp adding a rhythmic thud to his footsteps . He stood six-foot-one, a mountain of grey-streaked auburn hair and quiet menace. He placed a hand on the silver signet ring on his finger and turned it once.
"Address?" Silas asked, his hazel eyes fixed on Evan’s throat .
"I’m talking to my friend." Evan’s bravado wavered , just for a second.
"You aren't," Silas replied. "You're trespassing on my patience. And my patience is an extremely expensive commodity."
"You don't know who I am."
"I know exactly who you are," Silas said, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to vibrate in the floorboards. "You're Evan Vance. You live in a penthouse in Chelsea. You've got three offshore accounts that the Inland Revenue would love to hear about, and you’ve got a very nasty habit of hitting things that can't hit back."
Evan’s face drained of color. The polished, successful man began to peel away, revealing the hollow, frightened boy underneath.
"How do you—"
"I was a spymaster when you were still wetting the bed, son. I know the color of your socks before you put them on." Silas leaned in close, his breath smelling of peppermint and tobacco. "If you ever mention her address again, or if I see your shadow within three postcodes of this bar, I won't call the police. That would be too civilised."
Aurora watched the transition. Evan, the man who had loomed over her life like a thunderstorm for years, was suddenly small. He looked at her, searching for the fear he used to nourish himself with, but he found only a cold, clinical curiosity.
"You're with him?" Evan asked, his voice cracking . "A bartender?"
"I'm with myself," Aurora said. "For the first time in my life. Get out, Evan. Go back to your glass tower. Don't look back."
Evan gripped his umbrella handle so hard his knuckles turned white . He looked at Aurora, then at Silas, and then at the dark, map-covered walls of the Raven’s Nest. He realized he didn't belong here. He was a creature of bright lights and thin veneers. Here, in the shadows, the rules were different.
He turned on his heel and marched toward the door. He didn't look back as he pushed through the heavy oak entrance, disappearing into the Soho rain.
Aurora exhaled, a long, shaky breath that seemed to carry the weight of three years with it . She slumped against the bar, her legs suddenly feeling like water.
"You okay, Rory?" Silas asked, his voice returning to its usual gruff warmth .
"Yeah. I think so." She looked at her wrist, at the crescent scar. It had stopped throbbed . "How did you know all that about him?"
Silas smiled, a rare, thin line that didn't reach his eyes. "I didn't. I guessed the Chelsea part based on the shoes. The offshore accounts were a safe bet for a man in private equity. The rest... well, a man's character is written on his face if you know how to read the font."
He reached under the bar and pulled out a bottle of the good stuff—the top-shelf rye they saved for regulars. He poured two fingers into a clean glass and pushed it toward her.
"Drink that. Then go upstairs and lock the door."
"I can finish the floors, Silas."
"The floors are fine. Go on."
Aurora took the glass, the liquid burning her throat in a way that felt like grounding . She started toward the bookshelf in the back, the one that masked the stairs to her flat. The Raven’s Nest felt smaller now, safer, but the air was still thick.
She reached the bookshelf and pulled the hidden lever. As the heavy wood swung open, the green neon light from the front window flickered and died.
"Silas?" she called out into the sudden darkness.
No answer came.
A heavy thud echoed from the front of the bar, followed by the sound of glass shattering—not a glass this time, but the great plate-window facing the street . Aurora spun around, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Through the jagged hole in the front of the bar, a brick lay on the floor, wrapped in a white piece of paper. Beyond it, in the rain, a black car sat idling, its headlights cutting through the dark like the eyes of a predator .
Silas was already moving, his hand going for the back of his waistband, but he wasn't looking at the car. He was looking at the back door.
"Rory, don't go upstairs!" Silas yelled, his voice cracking with an urgency she’d never heard .
The back door kicked open, the wood splintering off the hinges. Three men in grey hoodies flooded the room, their faces obscured, their hands filled with heavy, silenced pistols. One of them pointed his weapon directly at the bookshelf where Aurora stood.
"Found her," the man said.
The first shot hissed through the air, punching a hole into the map of the world right next to Aurora’s head.