Adrian answered his phone before the first ring finished.
Nora did not hear what he said to the driver, but the car moved like the city had been ordered to get out of the way.
When they reached her building, Adrian was already there.
She did not ask how.
He stood in the lobby with two men she had never seen before, his expression making the air feel colder. When he saw Nora, his eyes moved once over her face, checking for injury. Then he stepped aside.
He let her enter first.
Her apartment had been torn apart.
Drawers hung open. Couch cushions were sliced. Books lay scattered across the floor. The framed photo of Nora and her late father at her college graduation was face down in the hallway.
“Miso,” she whispered.
A tiny sound came from under the bathroom sink.
Nora dropped to her knees.
Miso crawled out, shaking but alive, and Nora gathered the gray cat against her chest so tightly the animal protested.
She cried into Miso’s fur because the cat was warm and real and breathing.
For a moment, every terrible thing in the room became smaller than the fact that they had not taken her.
Adrian stood at the bathroom doorway.
Then he looked away.
That made Nora cry harder.
People watched pain when it gave them power.
Adrian gave hers privacy.
When she finally stood, still holding Miso, Adrian said, “Pack a bag.”
Nora stiffened.
“No.”
His expression did not change.
“No?”
“I am not moving into some criminal safehouse because men with poor grammar threatened my cat.”
Something flickered across his face.
Respect, maybe.
Or frustration wearing an expensive coat.
“Your door was forced open.”
“I noticed.”
“They know where you live.”
“I noticed that too.”
“Nora.”
The way he said her name almost broke her stubbornness.
Almost.
But Nora had spent too long being carried from one decision to another by people who claimed they knew what was best.
Her mother.
Celeste.
Helena.
Every person who told her to be polite, be grateful, be quiet, be easier to handle.
She held Miso closer.
“If I leave, it will be because I choose to. Not because you ordered me.”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened.
Then he nodded once.
“You’re right.”
She had been ready for a fight.
Agreement disarmed her.
Adrian turned to one of his men.
“Secure the hallway. Replace the lock. Cameras by tonight. No one enters without her permission.”
Then he looked back at Nora.
“You may stay. But you will not stay unprotected.”
That night, Adrian remained in the hallway while the locksmith replaced her door.
He did not enter until she invited him.
That detail mattered more than the black car outside.
More than the men guarding the stairs.
More than the quiet efficiency with which his people made danger look manageable.
Nora made tea because she did not know what else to do.
Her mugs did not match.
One said: World’s Most Tolerable Accountant.
Adrian looked at it for two seconds too long.
“Do not comment on the mug,” she warned.
“I would never.”
“You were absolutely about to.”
“I was admiring its restraint.”
She almost smiled.
Almost felt like betrayal.
How could she smile in a room that had just been destroyed?
How could her heart notice the shape of a dangerous man’s mouth while her life collapsed around her?
But fear was strange.
It did not stop the human part of you from reaching for warmth.
Adrian sat at her tiny kitchen table, looking too large and too powerful for the apartment.
Miso, who hated everyone, jumped into his lap.
Nora stared.
Adrian looked down at the cat.
The cat looked back.
Neither moved.
“She doesn’t do that,” Nora said.
“Perhaps she has excellent judgment.”
“She once got stuck inside a cereal box.”
“Even experts have difficult days.”
Nora laughed before she could stop herself.
Small.
Real.
Then Adrian placed her missing work badge on the table.
Her breath caught.
“Where did you get that?”
“One of my men found it in the alley behind your building.”
Nora picked it up.
There was a thin scratch along the magnetic strip.
“They copied it.”
“Yes.”
Her mind started working again.
“They needed my badge, my login, and my approval level. But someone inside my firm had to keep the approvals from getting caught.”
“Helena?”
Nora thought of her boss’s pale face.
“Maybe. But she looked scared, not guilty.”
“Scared people can still be guilty.”
“I know.”
Adrian watched her carefully.
“What do you need?”
The question surprised her.
Not what should I do?
Not what do you know?
What do you need?
Nora looked around her ruined apartment. At the broken drawers. At the scattered books. At the cat trembling against her ribs.
Something inside her settled into place.
“I need access logs.”
“Your firm locked you out.”
“I know.”
“Can you get them another way?”
Nora hesitated.