DOMENICO

Smoke curled lazily toward the ceiling of my office, thick and slow, twisting under the low light like it had nowhere else to go. The room was quiet in that expensive, controlled way only money can buy. No noise. No chaos. Just me, my thoughts, and the weight of everything I refused to let slip from my hands.

The glass walls of my office reflected faint versions of me back at myself. Older. Colder. Tired in a way sleep never fixed.

I sat behind my desk with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigar burning between two fingers of the other, staring at the monitor in...