Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HJPSN95H9S8MYCXNTWKES

Aurora opened the door with the chain still on. Lucien Moreau stood on the landing in a charcoal suit darkened by rain. His platinum hair had come loose at the temples, and he held his ivory-handled cane under one arm while he pressed a handkerchief to his ribs. Blood had soaked through it. For a moment, she could only look at him. Six weeks ago, she’d watched him put her into a cab after kissing her outside Silas’s bar. He’d told her it had been a mistake. She had let the cab take her around the block, then come home and listened to his footsteps in the street below. “Rory,” he said. “You know where the hospital is.” “Yes.” He glanced toward the stairwell. “May I come in?” A door opened on the floor below. Someone called a cheerful goodnight to Silas, and Lucien’s hand tightened on the cloth at his side. Aurora shut her door, slid the chain free, and opened it again. He stepped inside. She locked up behind him and turned to find him leaning on the cane, eyes closed. A drop of blood fell from his handkerchief onto the floorboards. “Sit down,” she said. “Your welcome has lost none of its warmth.” “Then you should have called ahead.” He gave a short breath that might have been a laugh. Aurora cleared a stack of delivery receipts from the chair by the window. Lucien sat with care, setting the cane across his knees. Up close, she could see a cut beneath his jaw and the fine tremor in his fingers. She got a clean tea towel from the kitchenette and filled a bowl with warm water. Her hands knew what to do. Her mind kept returning, unhelpfully, to the fact that he was here. “What happened?” “A man with a knife.” “Helpful.” “He wanted something I had.” Lucien watched her set the bowl on the table. “I still have it.” Aurora lifted the bloodied handkerchief. The cut beneath his ribs was narrow, but deep enough to make her stomach tighten. She held the clean towel against it. “You need stitches.” “I know.” “Is he following you?” “I don’t think so. I lost him near Aldgate.” “Then why come here?” Lucien looked up at her. His eyes never settled into anything easy: one amber, one black, both fixed on her face. “Because it concerns you.” Of course it did. Aurora pressed harder when the towel reddened. Lucien drew in a sharp breath and gripped the arms of the chair. “Sorry,” she said. “Don’t be.” She left the towel in his hand and fetched her phone. “I’m calling for help.” “A doctor I know can come.” “Will he actually come?” “Yes. Rory—” “You can tell me the rest while we wait.” He took out his phone and made the call. His French came fast and low; she understood only an address and the repeated insistence that the doctor hurry. When he finished, he looked paler. Aurora pulled the other chair close enough to see the wound without standing over him. “Well?” Lucien reached inside his jacket. She almost told him to keep pressure on the cut, but he drew out a small square of folded paper and handed it to her. It was a delivery slip from the Golden Empress. She recognised the cheap yellow paper, Yu-Fei’s square handwriting across the top, and her own initials beside yesterday’s afternoon run. One order had been circled in red. “The man took this from a ledger at the restaurant,” Lucien said. “He asked which driver had made that delivery.” Aurora stared at the address. A solicitor’s office near Farringdon. She remembered the receptionist who had signed for the food, the lift that had taken too long, a man in a brown coat who had held the door for her on the way out. “Why was he looking?” “I don’t know yet. I went to ask him. He tried to take the slip back.” “And brought a knife.” “Yes.” She put the paper on the table. “Why didn’t you tell Yu-Fei?” “I have. She said you finished an hour ago.” “So you came here.” She looked at his wound. “Did you at least tell her you were hurt?” “I was not hurt then.” “That’s almost impressive.” He eased back, still holding the towel in place. Rain tapped the window. From below came the muffled swell of voices as Silas’s door opened, then music when it shut again. Her ordinary Friday night sat just beyond the floorboards, close enough to hear and suddenly hard to imagine joining. “You should call Eva,” Lucien said. “Ask if you can stay at her flat tonight.” Aurora’s gaze snapped to his. “No.” “She has three deadbolts.” “She also has a cramped flat full of paper and a cat who’ll try to eat the bloody bandages. I’m not leading anyone there because you’ve decided it’s safer.” “I’m trying to give you an option.” “You gave it to me like an instruction.” She stood and went to the sink, though there was nothing there she needed. “You’re good at that.” Behind her, the chair creaked. “Rory.” She kept her hands braced on the edge of the counter. On the street six weeks ago, she’d had enough to drink to let him kiss her and not enough to forget what followed. He had touched her face as though she mattered, then arranged a cab and told her, gently, that she should go. Every question she’d tried to ask had met the same polished refusal. She turned. “If you wanted my help tonight, you could have told me that.” “I did.” “You told me about a knife after you’d come in. You told me to go to Eva’s before I’d even had time to think.” She glanced at the slip. “I’ll decide what to do with it. And I’m glad you brought it to me.” Lucien lowered his eyes. For once, he seemed to have no answer ready. Aurora came back to the table and picked up the slip. The red circle cut through the telephone number of the office. She remembered holding the food bag against her hip while the receptionist searched for a pen. “The man who held the door,” she said. “Brown coat, maybe forty. He watched me get into the lift. Could be nothing.” “What did he look like?” She described him. Lucien listened without interrupting, then asked for the time and whether she’d seen him when she came back down. She hadn’t. They went over the route, the order, the name on the receipt. By the end she could feel herself settling: frightened, yes, but thinking clearly. “I’ll tell Yu-Fei everything,” Aurora said. “And I’m calling the office in the morning. I want to know who placed that order.” Lucien nodded. “Good.” She sat back. “You can stay until the doctor gets here.” “Thank you.” “I’m still angry with you.” “I know.” “I don’t think you do.” She folded the slip along its old crease. “That night, you said kissing me was a mistake. Then you left me to work out whether you meant the kiss or me.” His face changed, a small break in his composure that she might have missed if she hadn’t spent so much time looking for one. “I meant the choice I’d made without thinking what would come after.” “And what would come after?” “I wanted to see you the next morning.” He glanced down at the bloody towel in his hand. “I wanted to see you every morning. I knew I’d made promises I couldn’t keep by kissing you the way I did.” She could have asked which promises. She could have let him explain himself into something blameless. Instead she waited. “I should have told you that,” he said. “I should have let you tell me what you wanted. I’m sorry.” Aurora looked at the little crescent scar on her wrist, pale against the yellow paper. It had been a long time since she’d been twenty and trying to make herself comfortable with someone else making her decisions. Lucien wasn’t Evan. That didn’t make the silence harmless. “I wanted you to come back,” she said. “I was furious that I did.” “I came by the bar twice.” “You didn’t come upstairs.” “No.” He met her eyes. “I was afraid you’d ask me to leave.” “I might have.” “You would have had every right.” A knock sounded at the door. Both of them went still. Lucien’s hand closed around the ivory handle of his cane. “Moreau?” a woman called from the landing. “If I’ve crossed London for a paper cut, I’m charging double.” Lucien let out a breath. “The doctor.” Aurora checked through the peephole before opening the door. The woman outside held a medical bag and wore the expression of someone prepared to be disappointed in both her patients. Aurora stepped aside. As the doctor took in Lucien’s condition and ordered him to remove his jacket, Aurora picked up her phone. Yu-Fei would still be at the restaurant. They had a delivery to discuss. Lucien looked at her while the doctor cut away his shirt. Aurora held his gaze long enough for him to see that she was staying, then called Yu-Fei herself.