The Alderton's rooftop was a black mirror under a bruised sky. Wind scraped across gravel and tugged at the hem of Elena's dress. Forty stories down, the city buzzed like an exposed wire.
Marcus Vance waited at the parapet with a glass of amber whiskey. His collar hung open, his hair mussed, the look of a man who had stopped pretending to sleep. When he saw me entering with Julian through the CCTV footage, something flickered across his face. Hunger. Recognition. The slow burn of a claim that had never been his to make. And I vividly remembered that face.
I met him in college, solved a problem he was frustrated with, hung out together a few times. I didn't even know his name. But since then, this man was secretly obsessed with me. He didn't even come to me like a real man. He had spent y
