“It’s surveillance,” I reply. “Nothing more.”
His silence says he doesn’t believe me.
I turn my focus back to the screen. Eden steps into the café. Her hair is pinned up today, messy strands escaping, her cheeks flushed from the chill outside. She orders tea with a quiet voice, then settles into her usual seat. She skims her notebook. She tucks her hair behind her ear when she concentrates. She chews her lip when she’s thinking.
None of this should matter. It bothers me how much it does.
I leave the surveillance room and head outside. The city is cold, the kind of cold that bites rather than stings. I pull my coat tighter and cross the street, pacing slowly until I’m close enough to see the café door.
I don’t go in. I never go in.
Instead, I stand by an alley entrance across the road, posture relaxed, hands in my pockets, eyes half lidded. Anyone watching would think I’m waiting for a ride. I’m not.
I’m watching her.
Ten minutes pass before the door swings open and she steps outside. She tucks her notebook into her bag and buttons her coat with slow, deliberate motions. A man walking past clips her arm, knocking her slightly off-balance.
Before I can move, she steadies herself.
She doesn’t snap at him. Doesn’t glare. Instead, she pauses and turns when she hears someone else whimper.
It’s a girl—a stranger—standing by the café wall, shaking with her hands over her face. Eden goes to her instantly, no hesitation. She crouches down beside her, touches her arm gently, and asks if she’s alright. The stranger sobs something unintelligible, clutching her stomach, and Eden listens. Really listens.
People notice them. People walk around them. Even so, Eden stays.
Her empathy is raw, unguarded, and deeply inconvenient.
I watch the scene unfold with a tightening in my jaw. She has no idea how dangerous it is to kneel in the open, distracted, vulnerable. She has no idea who walks these streets at night or who owns the buildings she’s standing between. If someone saw weakness in her, they could use it. Theywoulduse it.
My men stand a few shops down, pretending to smoke while keeping an eye out. They know not to interfere with her unless she’s in actual danger.
One wrong encounter and she would be.
She finishes consoling the woman, walks her inside the café, and stays until the manager calls for help. It takes ten minutes. Ten minutes of Eden being soft in a place that eats softness alive.
My fingers flex inside my pocket, irritation burning hot in my chest.
She shouldn’t be doing that. She shouldn’t be comforting strangers in a neighborhood held together by fear and silence. She shouldn’t be giving pieces of herself away like she doesn’t know what lurks under the surface of this city.
For a moment—one sharp, dangerous moment—I consider ending the problem entirely.
Killing someone like her would be easy. Forgettable. A quiet incident in a crowded city that swallows tragedies by the hundreds each week. But as I watch her walk out of the café again, tucking her hair behind her ear with a small, tired smile, the idea feels… off.
I push off the wall and move farther into the alley shadows as she continues down the street. My gaze stays locked on her until she turns the corner.
One of my men approaches. “Boss, you want us to keep following her?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Up close or—”
“No. Distance. Report movements. Nothing more.”
He nods and disappears.
I stay where I am for a moment longer. The city hums around me—cars rushing, sirens distant, chatter spilling from storefronts—but none of it fills the strange silence she leaves behind.
Curiosity was one thing. This is something else.
