Run: 2026-09-23-01M36NRAA3B1VV47P23WWE98KR

The door opened, and Lucien Moreau stood on the landing with blood on his cuff. Rory kept one hand on the latch. Her other hand curled around the edge of the door, thumb brushing the crescent scar on her wrist. “You have three seconds to explain why you’re here.” His eyes moved over her face, then stopped at the hand on the latch. One amber, one black, both shadowed with fatigue. “Someone put a price on your name.” “Two seconds.” “I refused the job.” “And came here to tell me that in person?” “I came because the man who offered it followed me.” A thud rose from the stairwell below. Rory looked past him. Lucien’s cane angled towards the landing, its ivory handle clean despite the dark stain spreading along his sleeve. “Inside,” she said. He stepped across the threshold. Rory shut the door and threw the bolt. The bar downstairs kept its late-night murmur beneath her floorboards: a chair scraped, someone laughed, Silas’s bass voice answered. Ordinary sounds. They made the silence in her flat feel staged. Lucien leaned one shoulder against the wall and pressed his free hand to his ribs. “Sit down before you stain the carpet.” “Still attentive.” “Still bleeding.” He lowered himself onto the edge of the chair by the window. Rory took the kitchen towel from the counter and tossed it at him. “Hold that against your side.” He obeyed without comment. The towel came away with a red thumbprint when she passed him the first-aid tin. “Who hired you?” “I don’t know his name.” “You expect me to believe you accepted work from a stranger?” “I didn’t accept it. He came to my club with a sealed envelope and enough money to make the offer insulting.” “Sounds like you.” Lucien’s mouth shifted. The old near-smile, careful at the corners. Rory knew how it felt against her throat. She hated that her body remembered before her temper did. “What did the envelope say?” “That a woman named Aurora Carter had begun asking questions about a group in Whitechapel. It included your address and a photograph.” Her gaze sharpened. “Where is it?” “In my coat.” “Take it out.” “I’d rather not.” “Then you can bleed on my chair while I search you.” “Some things never change.” “Neither do men who think a warning counts as an explanation.” She reached for his coat. He caught her wrist, not hard, but fast. His fingers settled above the scar. They both went still. “Rory.” “Let go.” He released her at once. She pulled the coat from his shoulders and checked the inner pocket. A thick cream envelope lay there, sealed with black wax. The mark pressed into it resembled a small open eye. She set it on the table. “You’ve seen that symbol?” “I’ve seen it in a few places. None of them good.” “Who was the man?” “He wore a grey scarf and a silver ring. He had a Liverpool accent and a way of holding still that suggested he wanted everyone in the room to notice.” “Any demon?” “Human, I think.” “You think?” “His shadow kept touching the wrong wall.” Rory glanced at the window. The glass reflected the lamplight and the clutter on her table: unopened post, a chipped mug, a stack of delivery menus. Behind that, Brick Lane shone wet under the streetlamps. She saw no one on the pavement. A heavy step crossed the landing outside. Lucien’s hand closed around the cane. Rory lifted one finger to her lips. The step stopped beside her door. A pause stretched across the room. The man outside shifted his weight; the floorboards answered with a low creak. Lucien stood. Rory grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down behind the wall beside the door. His breath brushed her temple. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “I had no intention of—” She pressed her palm over his mouth. His gaze met hers. The amber eye caught the lamplight; the black one gave none back. Beneath her hand, his breath warmed her skin. She felt his pulse against her fingers, steady except for one hard beat. The person outside knocked twice. Rory kept her hand over Lucien’s mouth. Her other hand slid to the kitchen knife she had left on the narrow shelf by the door. It wasn’t much, but the man outside didn’t know that. A phone rang somewhere on the landing. The footsteps retreated. A door opened below, then shut. Rory waited until the stairwell gave up every sound. Lucien touched her wrist, and she lowered her hand. “You could have told me you were bringing company.” “I didn’t invite him.” “People rarely do.” She stepped back. His shirt had ridden up where he’d pressed the towel to his side. A dark line of blood marked the fabric. She pointed at the chair. “Sit. And this time, stay there.” He sat. Rory opened the first-aid tin and found gauze, antiseptic, and a needle already threaded. She’d stocked it after a delivery had ended with a broken bottle and a customer who thought an apology meant she should stop asking for payment. “Lift your shirt.” Lucien did. A shallow cut ran along his ribs, an angry line beneath his skin. Rory washed it with antiseptic. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t flinch away. “You used to let me know when something hurt.” “I used to know what you wanted to hear.” She looked up from the wound. “That’s not the same thing.” “No.” The answer landed without defence. She threaded the needle through his skin. He drew in a breath and let it out through his nose. “You don’t have to make this easy,” she said. “I’m not.” “You always did that. Showed up with a crisis, then waited for me to be grateful you brought it to me.” “I came because I thought you deserved the truth.” “You could have sent a message.” “I didn’t know if your phone was watched.” “You could have called Eva.” “I didn’t want to put her in the middle.” “You didn’t mind putting yourself there.” “No.” He looked down at her hands. “I didn’t.” Rory tied the thread and cut it. The knot sat neat against his skin. “Why didn’t you tell me about the file?” His fingers closed around the edge of the chair. “I thought it would keep you safe.” “You kept notes on me. My shifts. My routes. The places I went.” “I kept notes on anyone who might use you to reach me.” “I wasn’t a route on one of your maps, Lucien.” “I know that now.” “You knew it then. You just thought your reasons mattered more than my answer.” “Yes.” She reached for the gauze. Her anger had once made her hands shake. Now they moved with the same precision she brought to sealing takeaway bags, checking the address twice before she left the restaurant. She pressed the pad to his side. His hand came up to hold it in place. His knuckles brushed hers. “I should have told you,” he said. “I should have asked what you wanted. I’m sorry.” Rory tied the bandage around his middle. “You said you didn’t want anything lasting.” “I said it because I wanted you to leave.” “You got your wish.” His gaze lifted to hers. “I know.” For a few seconds, the room shrank to the space between them. His shirt remained open. Her hands still rested at his waist, one on the knot of the bandage, the other against warm skin. The first time she’d touched him there, he’d drawn her closer. The last time, she’d put her coat on and walked out without turning back. “Why did you say it?” she asked. “Because you’d started asking questions I couldn’t answer without admitting how badly I wanted you to stay.” “That’s a poor excuse.” “I know.” “Were you afraid I’d ask you to change?” “No. I was afraid I’d agree.” Her hands went still. Downstairs, Silas raised his voice over a burst of laughter. Someone clapped along to the music. The flat’s thin windows rattled in their frames. Rory stepped away and dropped the bloody gauze into the bin. “You don’t get to come here and say the right thing because you’re hurt.” “I know.” “You don’t get to decide that one apology settles it.” “I know that too.” “Then what do you want?” Lucien looked at the envelope on the table. “I wanted you to know someone had your address. I wanted you to have the choice I took from you before.” “And after that?” His eyes returned to her. “After that, I wanted to see you.” The words did not soften his face. He didn’t dress them up. Rory could see the effort it took to leave them bare. She picked up the envelope and turned it over in her hands. The wax seal held no warmth. She set it down again. “You can stay until the man leaves.” “Thank you.” “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing this for you.” “I wouldn’t insult you by pretending otherwise.” She took the chair opposite him, though the space between their knees barely fit the table. Lucien leaned forward to reach the water glass. His fingers trembled once, then steadied around it. Rory watched his hand. “You’re in pain.” “Less than I deserve.” “Don’t make me disagree with you.” “I wouldn’t dare.” She met his eyes. A smile tugged at his mouth and vanished. Hers didn’t appear. The silence settled, no longer empty but crowded with all the things they had left between them: the door she’d closed, the messages she hadn’t answered, the hand he’d held too tightly once and released at once tonight. Lucien placed the glass on the table. “May I touch you?” The question reached her without a plea attached to it. Rory looked at his hand, then at his face. “Not yet.” He drew his hand back. “Thank you for asking.” She set her fingers on the table beside his. Not touching. Close enough that the heat from his skin reached her knuckles. Lucien stayed where he was. Outside, someone walked along the pavement beneath the window. Their shadow crossed the wall, passed, and left the room to the two of them.