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A man in a dark coat stood beside the car, speaking into an earpiece.
Her phone buzzed.
Milo.
Do not leave the apartment.
Her blood turned cold.
She called him immediately.
He answered on the first ring.
“What is happening?”
“Lock the door,” he said.
“It is locked.”
“Stay away from the windows.”
“Milo.”
A pause. Then, lower, “Viktor knows about you.”
The name from the phone call. The docks. Territory. Inheritance. Darkness.
Sera gripped the phone.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What does he know?”
“That I’ve been meeting a woman every Friday at the Halden Library. That I paid her. That she matters enough to be useful.”
Nina, watching her face, went pale.
Sera forced herself to breathe.
“I don’t matter.”
Milo’s voice changed.
“Yes,” he said. “You do.”
The line went quiet except for the faint sound of movement on his end. Car doors. Voices. A command given too low to understand.
Then he said the words she would remember long after every other part of the day became a blur.
“Bring that girl to me.”
Sera’s stomach dropped.
“Milo?”
He was no longer speaking to her.
A man’s voice answered in the background. “Now?”
“Now,” Milo said. “Before they take her first.”
Sera stepped back from the window.
Across the street, the man beside the black car looked up directly at her apartment.
Then her phone screen went dark.
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