This was what being out of my depth felt like. Small and exposed and painfully aware of everything I didn’t know. The language. The rules. The way death was processed here like a task to be completed rather than a loss to be mourned.
I dried my hands and stepped back into the hallway, heart thudding a little too fast. The receptionist glanced up as I passed but said nothing.
I walked out into the evening air like someone emerging from underwater.
Paris had darkened while I was inside. The streetlights cast soft halos on the pavement, and the sky had turned the color of bruised steel. Cars passed in a steady stream, tires hissing faintly against damp asphalt.
Life, again. Uninterrupted.
I paused on the sidewalk, pressing my fingers briefly to my throat as if I could calm the tightness there with touch alone.
Tomorrow, I’d have to come back. Tomorrow, I’d have to ask again—better questions, sharper ones. Tomorrow, I’d need to be composed enough to navigate paperwork and offices and strangers who didn’t care how much this hurt.
Tomorrow, I’d have to be brave.
But tonight, I was just tired.
I pulled my coat closer. Rose’s face floated in my mind—not sick or broken, but alive. Laughing. Bright-eyed. So certain she’d had more time.
“I’m trying,” I murmured under my breath, not sure who I was talking to anymore. “I promise, I am.”
Paris didn’t answer.
8
KANE
The stairs led down into noise and heat.
The space was smaller than Bangkok's arena—more basement than warehouse. Low ceilings. Concrete walls sweating condensation. A makeshift ring constructed from rope and metal poles that looked stolen from a construction site.
But the energy was the same.
Money changing hands. Bodies circling. Blood on canvas.
Home.
I made my way toward the back where two men sat at a folding table, counting cash with the methodical attention of people who'd been doing it their whole lives.
Fat. Both of them. Not soft—the kind that came from decades of good eating and zero concern. Expensive watches. Cheap tracksuits. Gold chains. Rings on fingers that looked like they'd broken more than a few noses.
French gangsters.
One looked up as I approached, eyes narrowing.
"Qui êtes-vous?" Voice rough as gravel.
I didn't understand the words, but I understood the tone.
"I want to fight."
The two exchanged glances. The second one leaned back, studying me like I was something unpleasant.
"You are cop?"
"No."
"You look like cop."
