Adelaide stared at the ten crisp hundred-dollar bills spread across the worn-out formica table like a blood stain on a wedding dress. One thousand dollars. More than her weekly rent. More than the surcharge the nursing home had threatened to slap her with if she didn’t clear the balance by Friday.

The rain had turned into a steady, miserable mist that clung to Adelaide’s wool coat like a second skin. Her boots crunched on gravel and broken sea glass as she walked past towering stacks of shipping containers that loomed like monoliths in the dark.

Two men stood beneath the flickering orange halo of a security light. They were built like the ones in the diner—broad, silent, wearing heavy wool coats with their hands buried deep in their pockets. As Adelaide approached, the taller one stepped forward, his eyes sweeping over her with practiced clinical indifference.

"Hands out of your pockets," he grunted.

"I'm freezing, and I have a bad back," Adelaide snapped, not breaking stride. "If you want to frisk me, do it quick before I catch pneumonia and bleed your boss for the medical bills."

The guard stared at her, genuinely startled by the lack of fear. He ran his palms down her coat, felt the heavy ceramic coffee mug she had instinctively slipped into her pocket—just in case—and frowned, pulling it out.

"A mug?"

"It's a good mug," Adelaide said, snatching it back. "Move."

They led her through a heavy corrugated steel door into what must have been an old packing warehouse. Inside, the space was vast, lit by overhead halogen bulbs that buzzed with a low, electrical whine. Stripped-down luxury cars sat in rows—BMWs, Audis, sleek black Mercedes with tinted windows—surrounded by crates marked with shipping labels from ports in Antwerp and Naples.

At the center of the warehouse sat a mahogany executive desk that looked entirely out of place among the grease stains and cement floors.

Maxim Rosetti sat behind it.

He wasn't wearing his suit jacket. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing lean, corded muscles and a faint, jagged scar running across his left wrist. He was reading a ledger with a red pen in his hand, his dark hair slicked back from a high, sharp forehead.

He didn't look up when she approached.

"You took your time, Adelaide," he said, his voice echoing off the corrugated walls. "I thought New York traffic was bad, but three days to make up your mind is a new record."

"I had to check if I had any other bad ideas first," Adelaide said, walking right up to the edge of the desk. She didn't wait to be invited to sit, so she pulled up a metal folding chair with a sharp scrape and dropped into it, leaning her forearms on the polished wood. "Your nursing home friends are trying to evict my mother."

Maxim stopped writing. The red pen hovered an inch above the paper.

Slowly, he lifted his head. His dark eyes locked onto hers with an intensity that could burn paint.

"My nursing home friends?"

"Sunset Manor in Brooklyn," Adelaide said, her chin lifting. "They just hiked the rates by forty percent. Coincidentally, right after I threatened to end a mob boss in front of a witness. People who own real estate in this city usually have their fingers in healthcare networks, don't they? A little squeeze here, a little pressure there, and suddenly a waitress with a sick mother doesn't have a leg to stand on."

Maxim stared at her. For a moment, the corner of his mouth twitched, not with anger, but with something dangerously close to amusement.

"You think I had your mother's nursing home raided over a spilled cup of coffee?"

"I think coincidences don't pay four thousand dollars in back rent," Adelaide shot back. "If you want to break me, break me. Leave my mother out of it."

Maxim leaned back in his leather chair, the leather groaning under his weight. He steepled his fingers, studying her with a look of profound, calculating curiosity.

"Adelaide," he said softly, "if I wanted to break you, you wouldn't be standing in my warehouse arguing with me. You'd be floating near the Gowanus Canal wearing concrete slippers. But you're here. You walked right into the lion's den because someone touched your mother."

He opened a drawer of his desk, pulled out a thick manila envelope, and tossed it across the wood. It slid right until it hit her knuckles.

"Open it."

Adelaide hesitated, her fingers brushing the stiff paper. She pulled the flap open and slid out a stack of documents.

They weren't eviction notices.