This Chapter is told from raina’s perspective

La Louvre.

The name alone sounded curated. Intentional. The kind of place where nothing existed by accident.

Ethan chose well.

I saw him before he saw me. He was already inside, standing near the host stand, one hand in his pocket, the other loosely holding his phone. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled just enough. Simple. Clean. The kind of effort that didn’t look like effort at all.

He looked good.

Better than I remembered from the context of offices and hospital corridors and coffee shop tables. There was something about him when he wasn’t carrying something. Something lighter. Easier.

I stepped forward.

He looked up.

And smiled. Not polite. Not practiced. Real.

"You’re here."

"I am."

For a second he just looked at me. Taking something in he hadn’t fully registered before. I recognized that look. I had been waiting for it without letting myself acknowledge that I was waiting for it.

Tonight I let him have it.

I wore a fitted black dress, minimal and structured, falling just above the knee. Hair down, soft waves. Light makeup. Nothing that announced itself. Just enough.

He pulled my chair out without thinking.

A small thing.

But the things people do without thinking are the only ones that matter.

I sat.

"Thank you."

"Of course."

The restaurant was quiet in the way expensive places always were. Low lighting. Warm gold tones. Soft reflections off glass and polished wood. A pianist somewhere in the background, not loud enough to interrupt, just enough to exist. Conversations stayed contained within tables, never spilling into the room.

Controlled. Considered.

I liked that.

We ordered. He went with grilled salmon, something safe but well made. I chose a filet with a light red wine reduction. A bottle of wine followed, balanced, not trying too hard.

Very Ethan.

He paid attention to details without performing the fact that he was paying attention. Most people didn’t understand the difference.

We talked. Work first, the project, the rollout, what the rebrand would mean for the next phase of the channel. Then it shifted naturally. He told me about small things. His mother’s recovery. Marcus. Kuro. The Abu Dahar campaign moving into its final stretch.

Normal life.

I listened the way I always listened. Not passively. Carefully. Every word a person chooses tells you something they don’t know they’re telling you.

At some point he laughed. Really laughed, at something he said about a client meeting that had gone wrong two years ago, and I felt something tighten slightly in my chest.

Not uncomfortable.

Just unfamiliar.

I had built this. Every meeting, every introduction, all the time I had sat in a coffee shop and waited. Every call I had made and decision I had arranged. I had built the conditions for this dinner the same way I had built everything else. Carefully. Patiently. Without rushing.

And now I was sitting across from him like it had simply happened.

Like neither of us had done anything to arrive here.

If he knew.

He didn’t. He wouldn’t. And by the time anything shifted enough to make him look back clearly we would already be somewhere the looking back couldn’t reach.

I picked up my wine glass and let the thought settle.

Dinner ended slower than it began.

Neither of us rushed it. Neither of us wanted to be the one to end it.

He walked me outside.

The night air was cooler. The street quieter than expected. Streetlights stretched along the pavement in clean intervals, the city doing its usual indifferent thing around us.

We walked side by side. Not touching. Close enough.

That was when I saw it.

A car parked across the street. Nothing obvious. Just there. A dark sedan sitting at the curb with its engine off.

My mind filed it before I consciously registered why.

Because I had seen it this morning.

Parked outside my building when Malik pulled out at seven AM. Same color. Same model. Same slight dent along the rear bumper on the driver’s side.

I don’t forget details like that.

Not ever.

My steps didn’t change. My expression didn’t shift. But my attention sharpened completely and the warmth of the evening recalibrated into something else underneath the surface of it.

Someone had followed me from my building to this restaurant.

"Goodnight Ethan," I said.

"Goodnight."

I leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. Soft. Brief. I had planned it as a natural endpoint to the evening and I executed it cleanly.

What I had not planned was the way something in me stayed in that half second longer than the gesture required.

I pulled back.

"Get home safe," I said.

"You too."

I turned and walked toward the car. Malik was already there. I got in. The door closed and we pulled away from the curb.

I gave it a few seconds.

Then I glanced through the side mirror.

The car moved.

So it wasn’t coincidence.

Interesting.

I leaned back and crossed one leg over the other like nothing had changed because nothing had changed. Not for Malik. Not for anyone watching.

"Everything alright ma’am?" Malik asked.

"Yes."

That was all I said.

By the time we reached the house I already knew what I would find.

I confirmed it anyway.

I stepped out of the car and walked inside like every other night. No rush. No hesitation. Up the stairs. Into my room. Lights on. Bag down. I changed out of the dress, folded it neatly and replaced it with something comfortable.

Routine matters. Especially when something is wrong.

I sat at my desk and turned on the monitor.

CCTV feed. Front gate.

And there it was.

The same car. Parked outside. Watching.

I reached for a pen and paper and wrote down the license plate carefully. Then I picked up my phone.

"I’ll send you a plate number," I said when the line connected. "I want everything on it."

A pause. "Understood."

The line cut.

I placed the phone down and looked back at the screen.

A few seconds passed.

The car engine started. Headlights came on.

It drove away.

Too late.

My phone pinged.

Ethan.

"Hope you got home safe. Have a good night’s rest."

I looked at the message for a moment.

The same man who had made me laugh over salmon and wine an hour ago. The same man whose cheek I had kissed at the end of a street while a surveillance car sat fifty meters away watching both of us.

He had no idea.

And I was going to make sure it stayed that way until I understood exactly who was in that car and how much they knew.

I typed back.

"I did. You too "😊

Sent it.

Looked back at the empty street on the monitor.

This wasn’t over.

It had just started.