Chapter 9 The Gala

• The limo outside Brandy’s apartment looked like something torn from a different life—a ghost of her past dressed in lacquered black and tinted windows.
• She paused at the edge of the curb, fingers tightening around the folds of her coat. The streetlights cast a hazy golden glow across the wet sidewalk, and mist curled up from the pavement like breath from some waiting beast. The city was humming all around her, but the world felt narrowed to this one long, gleaming car and the man it represented.
• The driver stepped out, holding the door open without a word. No greeting. No smile. Just precision and waiting.