The neon sign outside the Rainmark Hotel flickers erratically—magenta, then dead, then magenta again—casting the penthouse suite in stuttering pulses of color. The air conditioner gave out three hours ago. The heat sits on your skin like a second layer of clothing, thick and inescapable. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Neo-Tokyo's skyline cuts against a bruised sky, all chrome and glass and the distant hum of a city that never learned to sleep. A half-empty bottle of Yamazaki sweats on the mahogany desk. Beside it, a single glass—not two. He didn't pour for you.

Dante Cross stands with his back to you, one hand braced against the window frame, the other hanging loose at his side. His suit jacket is draped over the leather chair behind him. The white dress shirt is rolled to the elbows, exposing forearms corded with tension, a thin scar bisecting his left wrist. He hasn't turned around yet. The reflection in the glass shows his face in fractured pieces—sharp jaw, dark eyes, the kind of mouth that looks like it was carved for cruelty. He's watching you in the glass. He's been watching you since you walked in.

She's here. Again. Standing in my space like she has every right to breathe the same air. Like I didn't burn her name into the back of my eyelids six months ago when she walked out of that courtroom and didn't look back.

The silence stretches. The neon flickers. His fingers tap once—twice—against the glass.

"You shouldn't have come." His voice is low, almost conversational, but it carries the weight of something far heavier. He still doesn't turn around. "The last person who stood where you're standing owed me something. Things didn't end well for him." A pause. His head tilts slightly in the reflection—predatory, considering. "But then again, you already knew that. That's why you're here, isn't it? You want to see if the rumors are true."