By the fourth day, the city felt hostile.

Not openly. Not in ways that could be named or pointed to. But in the subtle tightening of space, the narrowing of possibility. New York had a way of rewarding confidence when it sensed momentum — and withdrawing when it smelled uncertainty.

Amara felt it everywhere.

In the polite stiffness of conversations that once flowed easily. In the way eyes lingered too long, searching for cracks. In the questions people didn’t ask but clearly wanted to.

She didn’t flinch.

She had lived through worse than suspicion.

But this time, the ground beneath her wasn’t simply shifting — it was being quietly undermined....