AI The heavy brass knocker on Silas’ office door rattled as Rory slammed her shoulder into the oak frame, ducking beneath the swung iron pipe that split the air where her neck had been a second earlier.
The lad behind the pipe possessed more enthusiasm than skill, but his knuckles were thick, scarred from years on the docks, and he smelled sourly of cheap gin. He lunged again, boots skidding over the worn red carpet.
Rory drove her elbow directly into his sternum. Air exploded from his lungs in a wheezing spray. Before he could recover, she seized his wrist, twisted the joint until the bones popped, and cracked his chin hard against the doorframe. He dropped in an ungraceful heap of tweed and dull desperation.
"Messy," a raspy voice observed from the gloom of the office.
Rory wiped a smear of greasy sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, her small crescent-shaped wrist scar catching the low ambient light of the hallway. She kicked the iron pipe into the corner. "He was waiting by the cellar stairs, Silas. You're slipping."
"Or I was curious how you'd handle a south London heavy," Silas Blackwood said . He sat behind his wide mahogany desk, a silver signet ring gleaming on his right hand as he rotated a cut-crystal glass of dark amber liquid. His hazel eyes were cold, calculating , assessing her frame in that infuriating way that made her feel like a dossier on an MI6 desk. "You used to freeze."
"I used to live in Cardiff." She straightened her collar, stepping over the groaning muscle on the floor and sliding into the leather armchair opposite him. "Things change."
"Some things." Silas leaned back, his auburn hair, liberally peppered with silver, catching the yellow lamplight. He didn't look like a man who owned a dingy Soho watering hole. He looked like a man who remembered every dirty secret in Western Europe and kept them neatly indexed under his blotter. "Your father called the bar again today."
"Brendan can talk to the dial tone."
"He sounded old, Rory."
"He sounded like a barrister who lost his favorite punching bag." Her voice snapped, hard as iron. She shifted in the chair, her shoulder-length black hair veiling her profile. "I didn't come up to the Nest for a family counseling session. You said you had the ledger."
Silas didn't answer right away. He took a slow, measured sip of his whisky, letting the quiet stretch between them until the only sound was the muffled thump of the bass from the main floor below and the heavy breathing of the unconscious thug on the rug.
"Downstairs," Silas said, nodding toward the hidden bookshelf door that led back into the main tavern. "Table near the corner. Back wall."
Rory frowned. "I thought we were keeping this off the floor."
"We are. But someone's sitting at your usual spot. Someone who's been nursing a single dry martini for forty minutes." Silas set his glass down with a soft *clink *. "He asked for Laila."
The room went icy. Rory’s hand drifted instinctively toward her jacket lining. Only three people in London knew that name , and two of them were buried under a concrete slipway in Greenwich.
"Who?"
"Go see for yourself," Silas said, picking up his fountain pen, signaling the end of the audience. "And drag this rubbish out with you. He's ruining the decor."
Rory grabbed the unconscious man by his greasy lapels, dragging him through the concealed aperture in the bookshelf and dumping him behind the cellar icebox without a second thought .
The Raven’s Nest thrummed with its usual midweek decay. Dark wood paneling soaked up the smoke, while black-and-white photographs of forgotten boxing champions and blurred European landscapes stared down at the half-drowned clientele. Neon green light cast long, sickly shadows across the floorboards from the sign outside the front window.
She cut through the haze, her bright blue eyes scanning the booths.
He sat alone in the shadows of the rearmost booth, his spine straight, fingers lightly resting on the stem of a glass.
Evan.
The dark hair she used to tangle her fingers in was cut ruthlessly short now, skinned close to his skull. His shoulders were broader, thicker, but the real change lay in his eyes. The easy, charismatic sparkle that had once charmed her father and won over her Cardiff flatmates had been completely scooped out, replaced by a flat, terrifying stillness. A pale, jagged mark cut through his left eyebrow , marring the handsome face she had once been terrified to disappoint.
Rory pulled out the sticky bentwood chair opposite him and sat down.
"You're late for your shift at the Chinese place," Evan said. His voice was deeper, stripped of its Welsh lilt , smooth like polished slate.
"I took a detour." She kept her hands on her knees, out of sight, fingers curled into tight fists. "How did you find me?"
"London isn't as big as you think, Rory. Especially when you keep running with retired spooks." He didn't move . Didn't lean forward. He simply observed her, a scientist dissecting a strange beetle. "You look thin."
"You look like a copper's night out."
"Private security now," he corrected softly . "Consulting. The pay is better. Less paperwork."
"Is that what they call muscle for hire these days?"
A tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. "You used to hate confrontation. You used to lock yourself in the bathroom when Brendan started shouting about the law."
"I grew up."
"You fled." Evan picked up his glass, turning it slowly . "Left your flat wide open. Left your clothes in the wardrobe. Your mother cried for a month, you know. Thought you were in the river."
"My mother knew exactly where I was going, and she was glad I went." Rory leaned in, the faint smell of stale lager and rain rising between them. "Why are you here, Evan? Did my dad hire you to drag his daughter back to law school, or did you just miss having someone to shove against the kitchen counter?"
The air between them turned thick, hot, dangerous. In the old days, a sentence like that would have brought a sharp backhand or a icy week of silence .
Evan didn't flinch. He set the glass down with precise, deliberate care. "I came to give you something."
"I don't want anything from you."
"You'll want this." He reached into his dark wool coat.
Rory’s body reacted instantly. Her knee slammed into the underside of the small table, rattling the glasses, and her right hand came up from beneath her coat, the narrow blade of a stolen steak knife pressing hard against the soft underside of his throat before he could clear his lapel.
The noise of the bar faded around them. A brass ash-tray wobbled on the edge of the table.
Evan didn't blink. He froze, his hand half-buried in his pocket, feeling the cold steel biting into his flesh just beneath his jawline. A tiny bead of dark red blood welled against the gray edge of the knife.
"Look at you," Evan murmured, his breath fanning across her knuckles . "Look what this filthy city made you into."
"It made me sharp," Rory whispered, her voice dangerously steady, her blue eyes locked onto his . "It made me fast. Pull your hand out of your pocket. Slow."
"It's just a file, Rory."
"Pull. It. Out."
He obeyed, withdrawing a thick, cream-colored envelope tied with red string. He dropped it onto the damp wood between them.
"Your father's firm is being liquidated," Evan said, his tone entirely devoid of heat . "The SFO raided his chambers at dawn. Fraud. Embezzlement. A few unalive clients whose estates went missing."
Rory didn't move the blade an inch. "Brendan's an idiot, but he's cautious."
"He was cautious until Evan Vance took over his portfolio," he said gently .
Rory’s pulse hammered in her throat. She looked from his cold, dead eyes down to the thick envelope.
"You ruined him," she said.
"He ruined himself. I just provided the shovel." Evan leaned back slightly , allowing the blade to slip away from his skin, though she didn't lower the knife. He dabs at his neck with a crisp white handkerchief, looking at the tiny spot of blood with an expression that bordered on satisfaction. "He took five years of my life, Rory. Treated me like a stray dog he could kick around the clerk's room. So I took everything he owned. His practice. His house in Pontcanna. His reputation."
"And me?"
"You left on your own." He stood up, towering over the small table, buttoning his coat with swift, practiced movements. "Though I suppose I owe you a thank you. If you hadn't run away to Soho, I might have stayed weak enough to care what happened to you."
"Evan."
He paused, looking down at her.
"If I ever see your face in Soho again," Rory said, her hand tightening on the knife handle until her knuckles turned white , "I won't stop at your skin."
Evan smiled. It was a cold, empty gesture that didn't reach his eyes. "You really have changed, Rory. It's a shame. I liked you better when you were frightened."
He turned and melted into the smoky darkness of the bar, leaving the heavy front door to swing shut behind him.
Rory sat rigid for three full seconds, her heart tearing against her ribs like a trapped bird. Slowly, her trembling hand lowered the knife, sliding it back into her pocket. She reached out and pulled the thick envelope toward her, snapping the red string with a sharp jerk.
Inside were three photographs and a slip of paper with a local London address.
The first photograph was of Silas, taken through a high-powered lens outside the bar three days ago.
The second was of Eva, stepping out of her flat in Camden.
The third was a copy of a flight manifest to Prague, dated for six o'clock that very evening, with a single name highlighted in yellow ink at the bottom: *Aurora Carter *.
The floorboards groaned behind her as Silas limped out from the dark passage, his silver signet ring tapping against the wood of her chair.
"He left something on the pavement outside," Silas said quietly.
Rory didn't look up from the photos. "What?"
"Two men with silenced automatics," Silas said, pulling a heavy snub-nosed revolver from his waistband and sliding it across the table to her. "And they just cut the power to the green sign."