CHAPTER SEVEN
431 Words
Leah didn’t sleep that night.
The photograph sat on her kitchen table like a silent threat, though no words accompanied it. She kept telling herself she should throw it away, yet she couldn’t—because deep down, she wanted to know why.
By the next morning, the city had taken on an edge, every shadow too sharp, every reflection in a shop window suspicious.
She almost didn’t go to work. Almost.
Henry was there when she arrived—not in her office, but leaning against the wall opposite her desk like he’d been waiting for hours. His tie was loose, his gaze unreadable.
“You’re early,” she said, dropping her bag.
“You’re late,” he countered, though they both knew she wasn’t.
She noticed then—his hand, resting casually at his side, a thin smear of dried red along his cuff. It didn’t look like wine.
“Rough morning?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
His eyes flicked to hers, then away. “Some messes you can’t delegate.”
He stepped closer, closing the distance until she could smell the faint trace of smoke in his suit.
“I need you to come with me tonight,” he said.
“No.”
He smiled like she’d just given him the answer he wanted. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
She didn’t ask where they were going. She told herself she wouldn’t go at all. But at eight, when headlights swept across her window, she was already wearing her coat.
The car took them beyond the city, past the safety of neon signs and crowded streets, to a part of town where the air felt heavier.
He led her into a building with no sign on the door. The smell hit her first—metal, oil, something darker underneath.
In the center of the dim-lit space was a chair. A man sat in it, head bowed, wrists bound to the arms.
“Henry,” she whispered, but he didn’t look at her.
Instead, he crouched in front of the man, speaking in a voice too low for her to hear. The man shook, muttering something she couldn’t catch.
And then Henry’s hand—steady, deliberate—tilted the man’s chin upward. His knuckles came away wet.
He rose, finally looking at her. “Some people,” he said softly, “only speak the truth when they’re afraid.”
Leah’s pulse thundered in her ears. She realized, with a kind of cold clarity, that Henry wasn’t asking for her trust anymore.
He was taking it.
- Writer
