The concrete belly of the parking garage was cold and sterile. It smelled of damp cement and exhaust fumes, a modern purgatory where deals were made and secrets were buried. My heels clicked with a sharp, echoing rhythm that sounded far braver than I felt. Each pillar I passed felt like a potential ambush point. This was Liam’s territory: a place of shadows and calculated risks.
He was waiting for me on level P4, Sector G, leaning against the hood of a nondescript black sedan. He wasn’t in his usual tailored suit, the uniform of a crusading prosecutor. Instead, he wore dark jeans and a cashmere sweater, an old tactic of his—the performance of intimacy, an attempt to conjure a ghost of the man I thought I knew.
My hand instinctively went to the slimline digital recorder in my coat pocket.
