Not the girl who cried on my floor.
Not the woman who watched me make coffee.
Someone else. Someone trying to survive this.
I watch until the doors close behind her.
Then I settle in.
Back seat folded down. Rifle case under the floorboard. Radio scanner on. GPS log synced to Boris’s system.
I may not beassignedto her.
But until this thing is done—
She’s mine to watch.
I wait five minutes after she disappears through the doors.
Then I move.
Cap pulled low. Dark sunglasses. Neutral jacket. I blend in, not out. Not the kind of man you notice in a city like this. The kind you forget you saw at all.
I scan the street again, slow and methodical.
No parked vans. No idling engines with slouched figures behind tinted glass. No civilian posture that reads military, no body language that telegraphs too much restraint.
I look for watchers.
There are none.
For now.
The corner bodega is too crowded. The juice bar too open. But two doors down, past a failing consignment shop and a shuttered vape lounge, there’s a café. No foot traffic. Handwritten specials on the window in dry marker. One barista behind the counter, checking his phone.
Bad business.
Good for me.
I enter, take the corner booth with a straight view of the bank’s front entrance. The glass here is tinted slightly amber; cheap film, easy to see through from this side. Bonus.
No customers. One camera. Angled wrong.
Perfect.
I order a black coffee. No name. No smile. Cash only.
Then I set up like I’ve done a hundred times in a hundred cities.
Laptop open. Earpiece in.
Bank feed synced. Mary’s bracelet pulsing with a steady heartbeat on the screen. Her mic opens automatically when sound levels hit conversational volume. No action needed.
The software logs background noise. Transcribes in real time. Boris designed the interface. Clean. Efficient.
It’s how I know she greeted a customer before she even sat down.
“Good morning, Mr. Alvarado. I can help you at window four.”
