The black car arrived on the seventh day at exactly 9:00 p.m.

I had counted every hour. Sold everything that still had value. Borrowed from people who would never speak to me again. I still only had nineteen thousand dollars. Not enough. Nowhere near enough.

When the driver opened the rear door without a word, I already knew what it meant.

The ride was silent. The city lights slid past the tinted windows in long, cold streaks. We stopped beneath a private tower I had only ever seen from a distance. A man in a dark suit led me through a side entrance, past two security checkpoints, and into a...