The thrift store on Orchard Street opened at nine, and Ethan was waiting outside when the owner unlocked the door.
He spent forty minutes and sixty-five dollars on a white Oxford shirt still in its original packaging, a charcoal blazer with good shoulders and a lining that hadn't frayed, and a pair of dark trousers that needed a single inch taken off the hem, the tailor two doors down charged twelve dollars and had them ready in three hours.
He walked back to campus feeling the difference already. The clothes were armor. He'd forgotten that in his first life, spending his twenties in whatever was clean. Now he understood what men like Castellano had always known: the way you presented yourself was the opening argument in every negotiation, delivered before you'd said a single word.
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