The car’s headlights carved a thin tunnel through the dark, the world beyond swallowed by night. I gripped the passenger door handle tighter than I realized, my knuckles aching, while Noah’s hands rested steady on the wheel. His jaw was set, that quiet determination etched so deep into him it looked like it might crack stone.
The dashboard clock glowed: 11:06 PM.
Less than an hour until Vivienne’s deadline.
The silence in the car wasn’t empty, it was loud with everything unsaid. The papers, the twin, my mother. And above it all, the one thought neither of us wanted to voice: if we failed tonight, there would be no second chance.
Noah finally broke the silence, his voice low, like he didn’t want the night itself to overhear.
“Once we’re there, we don’t hand over the documents first. We
