The afternoon heat pressed heavily over the neighborhood. Sophie had just finished her morning tasks at the little workshop where she worked part-time and was on her way to David’s shop, her heart light. Every week, David entrusted her with bundles of clothes to mend—shirts with loose buttons, dresses with torn seams, trousers that needed hemming. The little jobs were not glamorous, but they paid something, and Sophie had grown to appreciate the man’s trust in her skills.
But what Sophie did not know was that, at that very hour, Priya was already standing inside David’s shop, leaning against the wooden counter with an expression of false concern painted on her face.
David, a man in his late forties with a neat beard and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose, was adjusting the measurem
