Nathan hadn't slept properly in three weeks, not since the day a stranger had first shown him photographs of his sister's apartment and made clear, without ever quite saying it outright, exactly what kind of man he was dealing with. He'd learned, in that time, to function on the particular thin, wired exhaustion of a person holding a secret too dangerous to share and too heavy to carry alone, and it was in that state — hollowed out, running on nothing but coffee and dread — that he answered his phone on the third day of Cole's deadline and heard a voice he'd hoped never to hear directly.

"Mr. Reyes."...