The neighborhood where Lora Hale rented her place sat only a few minutes from the office, close enough that she could walk there when traffic turned ugly. But “close” didn’t mean “nice.” The buildings were old—old in a way that didn’t try to hide it. Under the streetlights, the concrete looked tired, patched and patched again. Some residents still had yellow-painted wooden window frames, the kind you only saw in photos from decades ago, when people fixed what they had instead of replacing it.
Ace Kane pulled the car into a narrow spot near the curb and killed the engine. The Audi’s sleek silhouette didn’t belong here. It was like a shark swimming through a pond—quiet, expensive, and impossible to ignore. He looked up at the dim, amber streetlight humming overhead, then back at the aging s
