1:10 p.m.
Ava made it to the Columbia campus early. But instead of heading to her lecture, she sat on the bench outside Hamilton Hall, heart racing.
She opened the screenshot again.
Zoomed in on the man's face.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
And why, after eighteen years—was he watching her again?
She tapped Jasper's number and texted:
"Hey, weird q—do we keep a log of morning customers by card?"
He replied:
"Only if they pay with a credit card. Why?"
"Just curious. Weird vibe earlier. That guy in the black coat."
"Which one? Had a few."
She hesitated.
"The one who ordered double oat w/ cinnamon. Around 6:50. Tall. Pale. Like, REALLY pale."
A beat.
"Oh. Yeah, that guy didn't pay. Said he forgot his wallet. Gave him a business card to bring back. Left right after."
No payment. No trace.
Just a ghost in a suit.
The sun was too bright.
Ava squinted against it as she stepped out of the café, her hands shaky and her nerves worn raw from what she'd just discovered—Lucien Crane, the triangle insignia, the connection to her family's accident. It all felt like a dream crashing into her reality.
She wasn't watching where she was going. The Manhattan buzz drowned out everything—horns blaring, bikes weaving through traffic, dog walkers yelling into phones.
But then the screech.
Ava turned.
Too late.
A black Mercedes S-Class tore around the corner.
It didn't slow.
She jumped back, barely missing the front bumper as the car swerved onto the sidewalk for a second before skidding to a halt.
Her coffee hit the ground. Her breath followed it.
"Hey!" she shouted, heart thudding so loudly she could barely hear herself. "Are you insane?!"
The driver's side door swung open, and out stepped a man with tousled dark hair, sunglasses perched like arrogance across his face, shirt unbuttoned just enough to scream trust fund trouble.
Leonard Cole Hernandez.
She'd seen his face before—on billboards for high-end watch brands he didn't design, in tabloids she never read. Son of Lorenzo Hernandez. Real estate mogul. Philanthropist. The kind of man who built skyscrapers and forgot the names of the people who cleaned them.
Leonard glanced at the bumper, then at her—then back at the blonde bombshell still lounging in the passenger seat.
"Well," he drawled, "you're fine. No harm, no foul."
Ava blinked. "You almost hit me."
"I didn't though," he said, smug. "Maybe try walking where you're supposed to next time."
The blonde—a girl with legs longer than Ava's patience and a laugh so fake it could've been factory-made—stepped out of the car, still fixing her lipstick with a compact mirror.
"She's being dramatic, Lenny," she cooed. "God, people in this city are so sensitive."
"I had the right of way," Ava snapped, stepping forward, fury burning through the remains of her shock. "You were making out in the middle of the street!"
Leonard's grin turned razor sharp. "You were spying on us? That's creepy."
Ava pointed to the lipstick smeared down the blonde's jaw. "It doesn't take a detective. Maybe wipe the clown paint before you kill someone next time."
The blonde gasped. "Excuse me?!"
"Oh, you heard me," Ava said, stepping fully into the space between them. "Next time you want to dry-hump your boyfriend in traffic, do the world a favour and stay out of a car."
Leonard stepped closer, his smirk gone. "Do you know who I am?"
Ava didn't flinch. "A spoiled brat who never had to pay for his mistakes."
Silence.
For a second, just a second, something flickered in his eyes. Not fear. Not regret.
Recognition?
No. It was gone before she could place it.
The blonde tugged his arm. "Lenny, let's go. She's like... bitter."
Leonard stared at Ava for a beat longer. Then, without a word, he turned and got back in the car.
The door slammed.
The engine roared.
The Mercedes peeled off, leaving only the smell of exhaust and an overturned cup of coffee.
Ava stood there, her chest heaving, rage bubbling under her skin. People were staring now, but she didn't care.
She bent down, picked up her broken coffee cup, and tossed it in the nearest trash can.
Then she turned toward Columbia.
Because this wasn't over.
Not the mystery.
Not the man in the suit.
And definitely not the brat in the black Mercedes.
2: 50 p.m.
Her lecture started in ten minutes.
Ava stood slowly and walked toward the building, but every step felt like crossing into a different world. The world where she wasn't just a barista-student hybrid grinding her way through life.
But someone watched.
Someone who knew her past wasn't over.
3:00 p.m. – Urban Sociology, Room 302
She sat in her usual seat by the window. Professor Ellery began the lecture, something about the evolution of surveillance in urban environments. Ava usually loved this class. It helped her make sense of the world's edges.
But today, every word felt personal.
"Surveillance isn't just about watching," Ellery said. "It's about control. Shaping behaviour. Creating power through presence—even if that presence is invisible."
Ava's pencil paused mid-sentence.
Invisible presence.
Control through fear.
Her mother's screams echoed again.
The flames. The hand that threw her out. The eyes that watched from the tree line.
3:45 pm
Ava had almost managed to focus again.
The professor's voice was steady, delivering lines about postmodern surveillance, power dynamics, and the thin line between protection and control. Words that now felt pointed, like they were meant only for her.
Then the door burst open.
With no warning. No apology.
Every student in the room turned.
A man strolled in—late, loud, and completely without shame.
Leonard Cole Hernandez.
He wore the same smug grin and the same messy hair from earlier that day, but now paired with a half-buttoned linen shirt and sunglasses perched on his head like a crown. He didn't belong here. Not in the physical sense, not in the intellectual one, either.
Ava's stomach flipped—but not from nerves.
From pure disgust.
He locked eyes with her. Smirked.
And walked past like he'd just strutted onto the set of some terrible reality show.
He sat two rows ahead of her and sprawled in the seat like it was a beach chair. Then turned and whispered something to the girl next to him, who giggled and flipped her hair.
Ava groaned under her breath.
Of all the classrooms in New York.
He looked back once. Winked.
She almost threw her pen at him.
4:01 p.m. — Outside Columbia University
Ava stormed out of the building the second the professor dismissed them.
She didn't even grab her notebook. She needed to catch the M60 across town for her night shift, and she needed to not deal with trust-fund idiots pretending to be students.
She rounded the corner—
And slammed right into him.
Leonard.
His cologne was way too strong and his grin way too smug.
"Didn't expect to see you again so soon, Café Girl."
She stepped back immediately. "Didn't expect you to crash a class just to sleep through it."
He chuckled, blocking her path. "You always this hostile, or is it just me?"
"Just you," she said flatly. "You bring it out in people."
He leaned in a little too close. "Look, I was kind of a dick earlier. But you're… interesting."
Ava rolled her eyes. "Thanks. I'll put that on my resume: 'Interesting to overgrown man-child with a death wish.'"
He laughed again, clearly amused.
"I'm serious. You've got edge. Come on, let me give you a ride to wherever you're rushing off to. I'll even drive slow this time."
She stared at him, then pointed to the black sports car parked at the curb—engine still running, blonde still inside scrolling on her phone.
"I'd rather walk barefoot through broken glass," she said coolly.
"Ouch."
"Try apologizing for almost killing someone. Might help you talk to actual adults."
Leonard's smirk faltered, just slightly. She was halfway around him when she froze.
There. Across the street.
Half-hidden behind a lamppost.
The man in the black suit.
Her heart slammed into her ribs.
He wasn't looking at Leonard. He was looking at both of them. Calm. Observant. Silent.
The triangle pin glinted in the fading sun.
Ava swallowed hard, her instincts flaring.
Leonard was still talking behind her. "You sure you don't want that ride?"
She backed away. "Positive."
Without another word, she turned sharply and jogged to the crosswalk, her eyes flicking between the man and the traffic light. She didn't look back.
She disappeared into the crowd, heart pounding.
At the corner, a bus hissed to a stop.
She climbed aboard and ducked into a seat near the back, pulling her hood up, her breath unsteady.
The man didn't follow.
But he was still watching.
And somehow, deep in her gut, Ava knew—
He wasn't just watching her anymore.
5:47 p.m. — Bus to East Harlem
The hum of the engine and the warmth of the heating should have calmed her.
But Ava couldn't sit still.
She kept looking out the window, checking her reflection, the sidewalk, the cars behind them. Searching. For shadows. For a man in a black suit. For the triangle pin.
Was he following? Watching?
Every stop felt like a risk.
But no one got on who looked like him. No sudden movements. No trench coats. No shadows behind lampposts.
Just tired people trying to make it home.
She forced herself to breathe.
You're fine. You're safe.
The bus slowed at her stop. She stepped off, adjusting her scarf. The smell of roasted peanuts from a cart nearby floated in the breeze. Familiar, grounding.
Her shift started in ten minutes. Just two blocks.
Almost there.
6:01 p.m. — Alleyway Beside Big Beans Café
She cut through the side alley like she always did. It was faster, and she liked the mural of sunflowers painted on the wall.
Halfway down, her phone buzzed.
She pulled it out of her coat—just a text from her classmate, Mila.
But the second her attention slipped—
A hand grabbed her from behind.
A cloth.
Sweet chemical scent.
Her scream died before it formed.
Darkness swallowed her.
Ava came to in a haze. Her limbs were cold. Her jacket was wet.
She was lying on the sidewalk… right in front of the café.
The neon Big Beans sign flickered above her, casting red light over her body.
Her vision doubled.
Her hands reached forward on instinct—searching. Grasping.
She touched something soft.
A coat.
The hem of the black one she'd seen before.
But there was no one inside it.
Just the fabric. Folded. Placed beside her like a marker. A warning.
Her breath caught.
The café door burst open.
"Ava?!"
It was Tanya, apron on, hands trembling. Behind her, Marco rushed forward.
"Oh my God—are you okay?" he asked, kneeling beside her.
"I—" Ava tried to sit up, her head spinning. "What happened?"
"You tell us," Tanya said. "You're freezing. You weren't answering your phone."
Ava looked down again. The coat was gone.
Had she imagined it?
6:47 p.m. — Staff Room, Big Beans Café
Wrapped in a blanket, Ava sat on the couch with a mug of tea she couldn't bring to her lips. Her head throbbed, but the warmth of the café—the laughter, the music, the hiss of the espresso machine—pulled her slowly back to Earth.
Tanya placed a hand on her shoulder. "You're safe now."
"You're home," Marco added gently.
They weren't just her bosses.
They were her foster parents. The only ones who hadn't treated her like a case number. Who remembered her birthday. Who took her in when she was sixteen and scared of everything.
They loved her like she was theirs.
Ava finally whispered, "Thank you."
10:22 p.m. — Ava's Room, Upstairs Above the Café
The walls were covered in postcards and pressed flowers. Books stacked in uneven towers. Candles that smelled like cinnamon.
Her safe space.
Mila's voice came through the phone speaker. "Wait—what? Someone chloroformed you?!"
"I think so. I don't know. I blacked out. There was a coat beside me when I woke up. Like… his coat."
"That is a psycho stalker move."
Ava swallowed hard. "What if he's watching me? I saw him again today. Near Leonard. What if this is all connected?"
"You need to report it," Mila urged. "Or at least write it all down. That coat thing is chilling."
Ava looked at her desk. The screenshot of Lucien Crane's face. The Sable Pointe logo. The triangle pin.
She whispered, "I will."
11:30 p.m. — Ava's Bed
She curled beneath the covers, staring at the ceiling fan.
Sleep felt miles away. Her body was still trembling. Her mind was replaying every sound, every flash of darkness, every second she lost.
But in the quiet, she made a promise to herself.
No more running. No more ignoring it.
She would find out who the man in the suit was.
What he wanted.
And what he knew.
Even if it meant facing the same darkness that stole her family eighteen years ago.