ROXIE

I didn’t sleep.

The safehouse bedroom had been a cold, quiet cell of anxiety, the sheets smelling faintly of Garrison’s expensive cedarwood cologne. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the black sedan parked outside my mother's shop in Ohio, and I heard Arthur’s chilling, distorted voice over the satellite phone.

One word from me, and that little shop burns.

By the time the weak, gray New York dawn filtered through the edges of the blackout curtains, I was already dressed back in my thrift-store blazer, my hair pulled back into a tight, defensive knot.

When I stepped into the living room, Garrison was already awake. He was...