But I felt wired. Awake in a way that had nothing to do with rest.
I needed to move.
I grabbed the black card and headed downstairs.
The door unlocked with a soft click. I stepped outside.
Paris was shifting into evening, streetlights flickering on. The temperature had fallen, air sharp and clean.
I started walking.
The city unfolded in layers—wide boulevards narrowing into tight streets, cafés spilling onto sidewalks, couples leaning into each other. Everything moved with a rhythm I could almost feel.
I passed bakeries and wine bars and galleries. Heard conversations in half a dozen languages. Watched people exist without urgency.
Yeah, I could get used to this.
But as I kept walking, deeper into neighborhoods that grew quieter, a familiar pull took hold.
I wasn't looking for it.
But I found it, anyway.
Every city had one. An underground. Where real action happened.
Bangkok and places like it had taught me how to find them. Same markers, if you knew where to look. Streets that emptied too quickly. Doors without signs. Men with postures that saidguardin every language.
I followed instinct, turning down an alley that smelled like garbage and cigarettes, past a loading dock where three men stopped talking.
One looked at me. I looked back.
He jerked his chin toward a door behind them.
I nodded and kept walking.
The door led to stairs. Stairs led down. And at the bottom, muffled through concrete, I heard it.
Fists hitting flesh.
A fight.
I smiled.
Yeah. Perfect way to cap the day.
No need to tell Connor.
7
ELLA
Evening settled over Paris gently, the way everything here seemed to—without asking permission, without making a spectacle of itself. The sky dimmed from pale blue to steel gray as I walked, streetlights flickering on one by one, their glow reflected in shop windows and puddles left over from an earlier rain.
I checked the address on my phone again as I slowed my pace.
The clinic sat at the end of a narrow side street, its façade modest and unassuming. No grand entrance. No sweeping glass doors or comforting signage. Just a low building of pale stone, a small plaque near the door listing its name in understated lettering.
This was it.
