Morning light spilled over the skyline, but Nicholas Wolfe barely saw it.
The city below pulsed with its usual rhythm — the muted blare of horns, the slow crawl of traffic — yet all he could see was Clara Hart’s face.
A face he still couldn’t read.
Nicholas wasn’t a man given to irrational fixations, but that male voice on her phone still burrowed under his skin like a splinter he couldn’t dig out. And the way she’d left — abruptly, without explanation — grated against every disciplined instinct he had.
It wasn’t just unprofessional.
It was personal.
His coffee sat untouched, gone cold. His inbox overflowed. Contracts waited in neat stacks he couldn’t focus on.
And Mato hadn’t shown up today, either.
Another coincidence. Another pattern.
Veronica’s voice from yesterday slithered b
