It seemed to take almost no time before the driver had me at my building. After thanking him, I took a beat. Paris was beginning to wake. Delivery trucks hissed past. A café across the street lifted its shutters. Somewhere, a woman laughed too loudly for this hour. The city didn’t rush morning here. It eased into it, stretching awake with the kind of grace you only get after centuries of practice.
Inside, everything was hushed. As I climbed the stairs, music drifted down from the second floor.
Violin.
Soft, slow, almost tentative—David, I was sure of it. He always played like he was coaxing the sound out rather than demanding it, like the instrument might spook if he pushed too hard. Even half-asleep, it pulled at something in my chest. I paused on the landing longer than I meant to, letting the notes wash over me, then forced myself to keep going.
Tired draped over me like a cloak by the time I reached the third floor.
I unlocked my door and slipped inside, moving by memory more than intention. Bag down. Shoes off. Camera out. I plugged in the memory cards, fingers clumsy but precise, uploading everything to the Paris Daily server the way René had told me to. No reviewing. No peeking. Just transfer and trust.
The files began to crawl across the screen.
That was enough.
I made it to the shower on aching feet and let the warm water rinse the night off me—perfume, sweat, the faint grit of the city. No long indulgence. Just clean.
Then bed.
The deep gray sheets were cool against my skin, the purple quilt heavy and familiar as I pulled it up. I grabbed my phone, thumb hovering for a second before I opened Dominic’s thread and hit record.
“Hey,” I murmured, voice thick with sleep. “Tonight was… perfect.” A yawn cracked through the word and I laughed softly. “As tired as I am right now, I know I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.”
Another yawn, bigger this time.
“I am also dead tired,” I added. “So, sleeping now. More stories later.”
I sent it before I could overthink it. I didn’t even bother with the charger, I just rolled onto my side and passed out.
Chapter
Fourteen
DOMINIC
New York never slept. It brokered, it bargained, and occasionally, it even berated. Just try insulting a taxi driver or a hot dog vendor.
Even at three in the morning, someone somewhere was closing a deal, signing a contract, bleeding money, or making a mistake that would cost them far more than they realized. I liked that about the city. It was honest about its hunger.
My office looked out over a slice of midtown that never really went dark. The lights from the buildings across the street cut into the room in long, pale bars, glinting off glass and steel and paper. My desk was a mess of files, contracts, and coffee cups—evidence of a day that had been both lucrative and exhausting.
I won three cases this week.
I hadn’t slept much.
I checked my phone.
No new messages.
I told myself I hadn’t been expecting one. That was a lie I’d gotten very good at.
My practice kept me busy. Wealthy families, creative clients, people who needed things done quietly and done right. I wasn’towned by any of them. That was the point. I chose my clients. They chose me. Control flowed both ways.
Frankie was one of them.
Her career was a minefield of contracts, touring logistics, image rights, and the kind of attention that could eat someone alive if they didn’t have the right protection. I made sure she did. Not because she paid well—though she did—but because she was family in every way that mattered.
She was important to Rachel. That alone would have made her important to me. But Frankie also had people, a home, and a life that she kept coloring in despite being in school, despite the tragedies in her past.
