ALESSIA
Ethan's men arrived on the thirtieth.
I did not know this immediately. What I knew was that Ryker was not in the kitchen when I came down at six-thirty, which was the first anomaly — Ryker was always in the kitchen at six-thirty, a fact I had organized part of my internal routine around. The second anomaly was that the apartment had the specific quiet of a space from which people have departed rather than the quiet of people still sleeping.
I stood in the kitchen doorway. The coffee was made — still warm, recently made — and there were four mugs on the counter, used and rinsed, which meant all four of them had been up and had left, quietly and without waking me, and that the reason for leaving had been something they had decided not to bring me into.
I poured myself coffee and
