The taxi dropped Noa two hundred yards short of the massive wrought-iron gates of 742 Sterling Crest Drive because the driver had looked terrified the moment he recognized the neighborhood name and refused to go any closer.

Noa walked the remaining distance through the mist, her cheap trench coat pulling tight across her shoulders. The iron gates didn't even have a keypad visible; they were monitored by high-definition cameras that tracked her every step. As she reached the threshold, a speaker embedded in the stone pillar clicked alive.

“Name,” a flat, mechanical voice requested.

“Noa Bennett,” she said, her voice steady despite the hammer-beat of her heart against her ribs.

A heavy, pneumatic hiss echoed through the damp air, and the gates swung outward, revealing a quarter-mile driveway winding through perfectly manicured black pine trees. At the end of the drive sat a limestone mansion that looked more like a modern European embassy than a family home.

When she reached the grand double doors, they opened before she could even raise her hand to knock.

A tall man in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit stood in the doorway. His posture was rigid, his expression an impenetrable mask, but Noa recognized him instantly as one of the bodyguards who had been standing near the table the previous night.

“Miss Bennett,” the man said, his voice deep and smooth. “Mr. Cole is expecting you in the conservatory. Follow me.”

She followed him through cavernous hallways paved with dark marble and hung with original oil paintings that probably cost more than her entire apartment building. The silence of the house was oppressive—not the peaceful quiet of a home, but the heavy, vigilant stillness of a fortress.

They stepped into a massive glass conservatory filled with towering exotic ferns and orchids. At the far end, sitting beneath a massive glass dome that framed the stormy night sky, sat Gideon Cole.

He wasn't wearing his suit jacket; his white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to reveal thick, corded forearms marked by faint, jagged scars. He was pouring amber liquid into a crystal tumbler, but his dark, intense eyes locked onto Noa the second she stepped across the threshold.

“You’re punctual,” Gideon said, his voice low and vibrating with a quiet gravity that filled the entire space. “Most people would have spent the evening calling police precincts or running away from a envelope like the one I left you.”

“Most people don’t have five-thousand-dollar medical bills due by Tuesday,” Noa replied, refusing to shrink under his gaze. She kept her chin up, walking halfway across the glass floor before stopping. “You bought my evening, Mr. Cole. I’m here. What do you want?”

A slow, dangerous flicker of something resembling amusement touched the corner of Gideon’s mouth. He set the decanter down, walked over to a velvet armchair, and gestured to the seat opposite him.

“Sit, Miss Bennett. We have a great deal to discuss.”