His Secret Luna

Chapter1

Some nights the city feels like it is holding its breath.

I used to love those nights. Back when I was younger and had not yet learned that quiet could be a bad sign, that stillness sometimes meant something was about to break. Back when nights like this one felt like a possibility instead of just another eight hours to get through.

Now I sat in my little booth at the parking garage on Clement Street, both hands wrapped around a cup of tea that had gone cold an hour ago, and I watched the rain come down through the gap in the ceiling where it always leaked, and I thought about forty-seven thousand dollars.

That was what my father left us when he died. Not money. Debt. Forty-seven thousand dollars of it, owed to people who did not send polite letters, and the third notice had arrived two days ago with a court date stamped on it in red ink so dark it was definitely a warning.

Mia's treatment was twelve thousand a month.

I did the math again the way I always did, the same way you press a bruise to make sure it still hurts. Three jobs. Rent. Food. The treatment. The debt payments that barely touched the surface. The numbers never changed no matter how many times I ran them.

I was twenty-five years old, and I was already off the road.

The rain picked up. I pulled my jacket tighter and watched the entrance ramp and thought about nothing, which was the only luxury I had left, when a car came in. It was black. It pulled into the lower level and I watched it on the little monitor, and then nothing happened for a while so I went back to my cold tea.

Twenty minutes later, I heard footsteps on the concrete and looked up.

The man who walked around the corner toward my booth was not what I expected. I do not know exactly what I expected at two in the morning in a parking garage in the rain, but it was not this. He was tall and dark haired and wearing a suit that cost more than three months of my rent, and he walked like he had never once in his life been somewhere he did not belong.

He stopped at my window.

I slid it open.

'Flat tire,' he said. 'My driver is handling it. I need to know if you have a floor jack in the facility.'

His voice was low and even.

'Bay three,' I said. 'Left wall, behind the orange cone. There is also a pump if the spare needs air.'

He nodded once. Started to turn away.

I do not know why I said the next part. Tiredness maybe. Or just the particular recklessness of someone who has stopped having anything to lose.

'You know you could have just called roadside assistance,' I said. 'Most people do.'

He stopped. Turned back around slowly. Looked at me through the window with an expression I could not fully read, somewhere between surprised and something else entirely.

'Most people,' he said.

'Most people,' I said. 'It would have been faster.'

He was quiet for a second. Just looking at me. And I held his gaze because I was tired and it was two in the morning and I had stopped being impressed by expensive suits approximately eighteen months ago.

Something shifted in his face. Just slightly.

'I'll keep that in mind,' he said.

Then he walked away toward bay three and I slid my window shut and went back to my cold tea and did not think about him again.

Or I tried not to.

***

He was gone by three. The black car pulled out as quiet as it came in and the garage went back to its usual stillness as I sat there until my shift ended at six, and took the bus home in the grey early morning, and checked on Mia and stood in her doorway counting the seconds between her breaths the way I had started doing without meaning to.

She was okay. She was always okay until the day she was not.

I made coffee. I sat at the kitchen table. I opened the drawer and took out the letter with the red ink and the court date and looked at it for a long time.

Then I put it back. Closed the drawer. And went to sleep.

The call came four days later.

Private number. I almost did not pick up. I had learned by then that private numbers were never good news, that they meant either someone you owed money to had found a new angle or some automated voice was about to tell you that you had won a cruise.

But I picked up. I still don't know why.

'Miss Blake.' A woman's voice, smooth and professional. 'My name is Diana Marsh. I am calling on behalf of Mr. Sebastian Hale. He would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience regarding a business proposal he believes you may find beneficial.'

I was quiet for a moment.

'I don't know a Sebastian Hale,' I said.

'He is aware of that,' she said. And I could have sworn there was something almost careful in her voice, like she was choosing her next words carefully. 'He knows of you, however. He believes he may be in a position to help with your current situation. Financial and otherwise.'

The drawer with the letter in it seemed to pulse from across the room.

'What kind of business proposal,' I said.

'He would prefer to discuss that in person. Tomorrow morning, if that works. Nine o clock. Hale Tower.'

I knew the building. Everyone in this city knew the building.

I should have said no. I knew I should have said no. But forty-seven thousand dollars had a way of making should irrelevant.

'Fine,' I said. 'Nine o clock.'

I hung up and sat very still for a moment.

Then I went to look up Sebastian Hale.

The first result that came up was a Forbes profile from two years ago. I stared at the photo for a long time before I understood why his face looked familiar.

Dark hair. Dark eyes. The kind of tall that attracts attention.

The man from the parking garage.