Lady With No Name

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Sleep never came.

I knew that by midnight. By 2am I stopped bargaining with it.
Her voice kept finding me in the dark.

"… I left something with you."

What do you mean, you left something with me? I ran it back. Then ran it back again. Finally I gave up on sleep. It didn't want me anyway.

It was 6:02.
I lit a cigarette even though I don’t smoke.
I let the smoke curl up and go nowhere.

By the time I got downstairs, the city was already moving mad.
Delivery Vans, tired baristas, men in cheap suits carrying briefcases full of someone else's agenda..

This is what a normal morning looks like. Standard.
But normal didn't fit me anymore.

That’s when I saw it.

A letter.
Folded twice.
Slipped under the door by hands that knew better than to knock.

The thing didn’t have a name or an address.
Just a lipstick stain in the corner that told me everything the envelope wouldn't.

10+10 tells me it’s her.

The note read:

“Don’t trust the man in the grey suit. He already knows.”

I went cold.

My closet holds three grey suits.
Italian cuts, tailored to my shape, paid in full.
One of them wasn't mine.

Clean and pressed like it had been waiting for me to notice it.
Somebody had been in my space.

My pulse slowed. It does that.
Panic is for amateurs.
Calculation is for survivors.

Whoever she was knew enough to warn me.
Whoever he was already knew.

Two different kinds of dangerous.

*DOOR KNOCKS

I'd just folded the note when the knock came.
Pranks don’t last this long.
Three sharp raps told me enough.

I didn't move. Neither did they. We understood each other perfectly.

“Morning, Mr.10. Time to talk about your suit.”

To be continued…

Next Chapter — I Never Told Him She Called.