Fog rolled low over the cobblestones, blurring the street lamps into hazy orbs of gold. The kind of night that swallowed sound and made even footsteps feel like secrets.
I tugged my coat tighter and slipped into the narrow alley behind Leith Street — the one he'd written on the card. The man's name still wasn't on it. Just a number, and now, a time.
He was already there.
Leaning against a black car that looked older than both of us combined, the man struck a match, the flare cutting through the mist. He didn't smoke it — just watched the fire crawl up, then shook it out.
"Get in," the man said. His voice had that low Midlands drawl, a bit of whisky in it.
I didn't move. "Well," I said, "aren't you supposed to introduce yourself first?"
He huffed a quiet laugh. "Still got manners, have we? Fine. Name's Callum Fraser Boyd. Used to run kitchens when they still meant somethin'. Before blokes like Leon Gian turned 'em into bloody boardrooms."
"Annasia Keller…" I introduced.
He didn't shake my hand. Just watched me.
He leaned forward slightly, one corner of his mouth lifting. "You're not a Keller, are you?"
I froze. Just a heartbeat. Just long enough.
He noticed. Of course he did.
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
The car smelled faintly of tobacco and leather — the kind of smell that clings to men who've seen too much and never bothered to wash it off. The rain tapped on the roof like impatient fingers. He drove slow, too slow, like he had nowhere urgent to be — except inside my head.
"Oh, chill, dear," he said at last, voice dragging out the words like smoke. "No one normal shows up at that bloody competition. Nobles, rich folk, a few desperate bastards lookin' to buy a new name for themselves…"
He shot me a side glance, that crooked grin slicing through the dim. "And besides — a Keller wouldn't be caught dead there. It's kind of a a normal family, far from all this circus."
He paused at the red light, fingers tapping the steering wheel to a silent tune.
"So," he continued, almost lazy, "if you're there, that means you're chasin' somethin'. Which makes you not normal. Not even close."
I leaned against the seat, crossing my arms. "Maybe I just like good food."
He snorted, low and amused. "Right. And I drink tea for the taste."
He turned toward me then — not fully, just enough for me to catch that sharp, knowing glint in his eye. "You've got the look, lass. Not hungry for fame, but for somethin' buried. Maybe someone."
My jaw tightened. "You talk too much."
"That's what people say right before they start listenin'," he said, grin widening. The engine hummed, his rings catching the light as he shifted gears. "You walk into a place full of cameras and devils dressed as chefs, pretendin' to be one of 'em… You either stupid, brave, or desperate. Which one are you?"
I didn't answer. The city slid past — gray stone, wet streets, people huddled in coats.
He pulled over by the curb, engine still running, the rain now drumming louder.
"Word of advice, love," he said, leaning back against the seat. "Edinburgh eats people who lie for a livin'. But if you play smart — and cruel enough — she might just spit you out rich instead of dead."
"Who really are you?" I whispered.
He didn't look at me at first. Just kept staring straight ahead, eyes fixed on the glimmer of streetlights through the fog. Then, slowly, he turned his head, that same crooked grin tugging at his lips.
A finger went up to his mouth — gloved, steady, commanding.
"Hush," he said softly, almost playfully. "Don't ruin the moment."
The sound of his voice wasn't cruel — it was worse. Calm. Like someone who already knew how the story ended.
Before I could reply, he opened his door. The cold hit us both, sharp and clean.
"Get out before people start wonderin' why a lass like you's sittin' in a car with the devil," he murmured, eyes still gleaming under the dim streetlight.
I opened the door, the cold air hitting my face.
"Thanks for the ride," I said flatly.
This place felt… older. Narrow lanes. Stone walls slick with moss. A crooked sign swinging above a wooden door that read The Gallow's Rest.
A pub — but not one you'd find in any guidebook.
The moment I stepped inside, I smelled smoke, damp oak, and history. The kind that never washed off. Men at the bar glanced up for half a second, then turned back to their drinks. The floor creaked beneath our steps, every sound swallowed by the low hum of a piano playing somewhere in the back.
He didn't speak. Just nodded toward the barman, who gave a brief tilt of his head — a silent code, something I wasn't meant to understand.
Then he led me through a narrow hallway, past a shelf lined with old whisky bottles and a wall covered in photographs yellowed with time. One door at the end — heavier than it looked. He pushed it open.
The room was small, quiet, warm with the faint glow of a single lamp. Leather armchairs, a table in between, a map pinned on the wall — not of Scotland, but of something far wider, marked with red ink circles like old blood stains.
"Sit," he said.
I sat, knees parallel, fingers brushing the rim of my glass twice before I dared lift it. The sound of the liquid shifting inside was clearer in my left ear — always was.
He poured whisky into two glasses, handed me one, and sat across from me with the ease of someone who owned the air we breathed.
"This," he began, swirling the amber liquid, "is where honesty starts — or ends, depending on how you play."
I met his eyes. "You said you wanted to talk about a job."
He smiled faintly, a corner of his mouth twitching. "Aye, that I did." He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "But first, I like to know who I'm drinking with. And you, my dear… you're not who you say you are, are you?"
I frowned, but no words ruin out of my mouth.
"We agreed about this."
He sipped his whisky, eyes still on me. "So, Miss-Not-Keller. Here's what I want. There's a woman I need you to watch. Quietly. Learn her marriage life. What she does, who she speaks to, and most important—her husband. You don't interfere or interfere— is up to you. I want her world laid out on my table before winter ends."
I stared at him, my thumb tapping twice against the glass, then once more to make it even. "You want me to spy for you."
He tilted his head, a shadow of amusement crossing his face. "Such an ugly word, spy. Let's call it… a review. You'll be a reviewer or you could be a cheater, a mistress, whoever you like. A judge, if anyone asks. You'll be working under my name, of course."
The sound of the rain outside was sharp against the window. My hearing aid caught the echo of it, magnified the rhythm — steady, even.
"So who's the woman?" I asked, keeping my voice flat.
He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking. "Alice," he said simply. "Alice Giancarlo."
The name hit like a dull thud.
He went on, unaware — or maybe entirely aware — of how the air between us changed. "You'll find her in every bloody magazine, every high-table event, smiling like she's born to it. Wife of Leon Giancarlo— that golden boy of the old line. She's got his name, his estate, his money… but she's not what she seems. You'd know that, wouldn't you?"
He slid a folder across the table. "I want you to learn what she's hiding. How she keeps that empire running while her husband's busy playing saint. You do that, and we both get what we want."
I looked at the folder but didn't touch it. My fingers tapped the edge of my glass — two times left, two times right, just enough to balance the sound in my head.
"And what exactly do you want from her?" I asked.
He smiled thinly, tilting his head as if testing me. "Oh, nothing romantic, if that's what you're thinking. Let's just say Leon's been sitting on a throne built by other people's bones. Some of us think it's time the crown slips."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a silver cigarette case, offering me one. I shook my head. He lit his, and the flare of the match reflected in his eyes — cold, calculating.
"So," he said between drags, "what do you say, Miss Keller — or whatever your real name is?"
The hearing aid hissed again. I adjusted it with a quick motion, almost a nervous tic. "You're asking me to spy on a woman who could ruin me with a single call," I said.
He smirked. "Aye. That's the fun part."
I picked up the folder, the paper heavier than it looked. "And if I fail?"
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "You won't. You don't look like the failing type. You look like the kind who's got something to prove — or someone to avenge."
That one landed too close.
I stood, slipping the folder under my arm. My reflection flickered in the window — wig perfect, face unreadable. "When do I start?"
He grinned, low and wolfish. "You already have, sweetheart."
Outside, the rain hadn't stopped. The air was colder now, or maybe I was. I counted my steps to the car — one, two, three, pause, then double it — until the rhythm in my head felt balanced again.
I narrowed my eyes, half a smirk playing on my lips. "You give this chance to a woman you barely know. Isn't it funny?"
He chuckled — low, rough, like gravel dragged over glass. "Funny? Maybe. But I've always had an eye for desperate people. They get things done faster."
I leaned back, crossing my arms. "So you think I'm desperate?"
He blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling, eyes steady on me. "Could be."
I swallowed hard but said nothing.
The silence stretched. Somewhere behind us, a clock ticked — steady, deliberate, like it was counting down something neither of us could name.
I pushed the folder toward him slightly. "You sure you want me for this?"
He tilted his head, eyes still amused. "No. But I want someone the De Marias won't see coming. And you—" he gestured lightly toward me, "—you look like a mistake waiting to happen. The perfect kind."
For a second, I almost laughed. Almost. "You must be very trusting."
"Not at all," he said, standing, slipping his coat over his shoulders.
He dropped his cigarette into his glass, the hiss filling the quiet. "We'll be in touch, Miss Keller. Or whoever you decide to be tomorrow."
I glanced up at he walk out of the room.
"Don't regret everything you said, and i still remember you said you will fulfill 3 wishes of mine.."
Three wishes.
Three promises.
Three chances to lose everything.
He turned slightly, the amber light catching on his jaw, the faint scar that tugged at his cheek when he grinned.
I leaned back in my chair, eyes following the faint trail of his cigarette smoke. "You said it yourself," I replied quietly. "You like desperate people. So grant me desperate things."
"Then three wishes then, thinking it carefully, lass, my perfect barista will give you my real phone number…, also, the last woman who asked me for three wishes didn't live long enough to enjoy the third."
My pulse skipped. "Then I'll make mine count."
He chuckled under his breath, tipping his hat. "I almost hope you do."
The door clicked shut behind him, the sound echoing through the dim wooden room like the last note of a secret. I exhaled slowly, staring at the rippling glass, the cigarette ember still glowing faintly in the bottom.
—§—-
Morning came like a bruise — slow, cold, and heavy.
The fog outside blurred the city until it looked like a dream that refused to wake.
I sat by the kitchen counter, a half-drunk mug of black coffee cooling beside me. The folder lay open across the table — its contents spread out like pieces of a confession. My hands hovered above it for a moment before I began to arrange the papers into neat stacks: photographs, reports, press articles.
Three stacks, equal height.
Balance. Always balance.
The hearing aid buzzed faintly in my left ear. I twisted the dial, just enough to mute the static without losing the world. The sound of the refrigerator's hum returned — low, steady — a rhythm I could trust.
Three folders lay open before me, arranged with surgical precision: one for De Maria Superfood Group, one for Alice Dunnachie, and one for Serena Löwendeld. My mother's name still looked foreign on the paper — too official, too final..
"Subject: Alice Dunnachie. Co-owner of De Maria Group. Ties to multiple offshore holdings. Previously associated with Operation Tenebris ."
My jaw tightened. That name — Tenebris — had appeared before, in one of my mother's last encrypted notes. I never found out what it meant. MIU hadn't either.
I lined up the pages again, edges flush. The paper wasn't straight — one corner stuck out. I fixed it. Then again. Then once more, until it felt right.
The hearing aid gave another faint crackle. I reached up, adjusted it, half-listening to the sound of rain outside. The city murmured in its sleep.
In one photo, Alice Dunnachie stepped out of a car — wrapped in a wool coat, smiling for the cameras. A public darling. Soft-spoken, charitable, the face of a company that sold "purity in a bottle."
But the smile… no warmth in it. I'd learned to recognize that kind. Controlled. Practiced.
The kind that never cracks — until blood's already on the floor.
Lucas's note was still stuck on the fridge: "Eat something normal. Not just caffeine."
I ignored it, again.
In a flash, I closed all the folders — one smooth motion, muscle memory from years of hiding things faster than I could explain them. Paper clipped, stacked, angled perfectly. The coffee mug slid forward to cover the corner with my mother's name.
"Couldn't sleep," I said, voice too casual.
Maya blinked at me, then at the folders I was very obviously not looking at. "Uh-huh. And the table deserved it?"
"Apparently," I muttered.
She padded closer, peering at the mess I'd just disguised as organization. "You were doing your weird spy homework again, weren't you?"
"Research," I corrected.
She snorted. "Right. And I'm the Queen of England."
I glanced up, meeting her reflection in the kitchen window instead of her actual face. "You don't have the accent."
"About your school," I said, breaking the silence as I pushed another cup of coffee her way. "I found a few options for you — good ones. Some even close enough that you won't need to wake up at ungodly hours."
Maya froze mid-sip. "You're kidding."
I shook my head. "I don't joke about education."
She groaned dramatically, sinking lower in her chair. "You actually went and did research. Like, with spreadsheets, didn't you?"
I looked at her over the rim of my mug. "Color-coded."
"God, you're worse than my social worker."
"Thank you," I said dryly. "I take that as a compliment."
Maya leaned back, crossing her arms. "You don't get it, Anna. I don't need school. I just need to make sure Mona's okay."
"And she will be," I replied, calm but firm. "But that doesn't mean you have to throw away everything else."
Her eyes flicked up, sharp, defensive. "You sound like every adult who's ever told me to 'focus on myself.' Guess what — focusing on myself never kept her alive longer."
"Admit it, Maya," I said, my voice low and flat. "She won't get better. But she'll get to see sunlight. She'll get to see her mother… maybe, or at least a life that isn't only hospital lights. She'll go with a smile, not a machine in her ear."
Maya's cup froze halfway to her lips. For a beat she looked furious—like she wanted to argue, to shove the world until it gave them a different ending. Instead her shoulders sagged and the fight left her eyes. "Don't you dare," she whispered. "Don't you ever say it like that to me."
I didn't soften. That would've been easier. "I'm not being cruel," I said. "I'm being honest. You need a future after this. Mona needs someone who can still stand when she's gone." The words landed harder than I intended. My fingers found the seam of the mug and worried it—left, right, left—until the rhythm steadied me.
She lunged forward before I could finish the thought, her chair scraping harshly against the tiles.
Her hands clutched my collar, trembling—not from strength, but from something far more desperate.
"Shut up!" she hissed. Her voice cracked somewhere between rage and grief. "You don't get to talk about her like that—like she's already gone!"
Her breath hit my cheek, sharp and uneven, and for a moment I could see the wet shimmer gathering at the corner of her eyes. She wasn't angry at me—she was angry at the truth, and the truth had my voice.
I didn't move. Didn't push her away. The hum of my hearing aid buzzed faintly against the pressure in the room, amplifying the shallow hitch of her breathing, the distant tick of the clock on the wall, the soft grind of her teeth as she tried to swallow her sob.
Maya's voice broke the silence like glass.
"You think I don't know she's fading?" she snapped, her hands shaking as she wiped at her face. "You think I don't see it every damn day? The way her hands get colder, the way she sleeps longer, the way she stops laughing at the shows she used to love—" Her voice cracked. "I see it, Anna. I live it."
I stayed still, the air heavy between us. The hum in my hearing aid flickered with her breathing—ragged, uneven, too full of pain for someone her age.
Her voice cracked again, full of that unbearable desperation.
"You don't get it, Anna! You don't! You don't know what it's like to watch someone die and know you can't do a damn thing to stop it!"
I didn't flinch.
"Could be…" I pry her fingers off my collar.
I looked at her — this girl clinging to her sister's fading heartbeat — and I wanted to say, Maya, I know what it's like to fight for ghosts.
But I didn't.
Because some truths don't heal. They only rot when exposed.
So I just watched her, letting her anger spill, letting her cry without saying anything stupid like it'll be okay. I knew better than that.
Maybe I didn't. But I wanted to try.
I drew in a slow breath. "You're right," I said, keeping my tone calm, steady — the kind of steadiness I used to fake during interrogations. "I don't get your pain, Maya. Not the way you live it. But I've seen what it does. I've seen what happens when it eats you whole."
Her lip trembled. "And you think school's gonna fix that?"
"No," I said softly. "But it might stop you from disappearing the same way she will."
Or the way I did.
I stood up without another word. The chair scraped lightly against the floor, the sound slicing through the silence Maya left behind. Her head was bowed, shoulders trembling — but I didn't reach for her. Not yet.
Instead, I walked down the narrow hall toward Mona's room. The air there always felt… softer somehow. Quieter. Like the world decided to breathe slower for her sake.
The lamp was still on, its yellow glow spilling over the little girl curled beneath a mountain of blankets. Her chest rose and fell in shallow rhythms, a faint whistle in each breath.
Beside her bed — a chaos of paper, crayons, and broken pencils.
I knelt down, careful not to wake her, and touched one of the pages. Crayon drawings, stacked unevenly, edges curled. Half-finished sketches of houses, animals, a girl with pink dress standing between two taller figures.
Me.
And Maya.
I swallowed hard. The lump in my throat burned.
She'd drawn us smiling — wide, messy, like happiness wasn't something fragile. Like it was real.
My fingers brushed the paper's corner, feeling its rough texture against my skin. "You like drawing, huh…" I whispered, almost to myself.
The hearing aid buzzed again faintly, a small reminder of how fragile noise could be — how fragile life could be.
For a second, I let myself imagine what it'd be like if things were normal. If Mona didn't have tubes, if Maya didn't have walls, if I didn't have… ghosts.
They have a normal family, I have a…mom.
It was near the bottom of the pile — a page softer from too much handling, the edges worn where tiny fingers must've traced the same lines over and over.
I slid it out carefully.
A woman, drawn in shaky pastel strokes. Long hair, a kind smile, a halo of yellow around her — sunlight, maybe. Mona had written, in careful crooked letters, "Mommy."
The crayon had smudged near the face, as if someone had touched it too many times — maybe trying to fix it, maybe just… missing it.
My chest tightened. For a moment, I couldn't look away.
I exhaled slowly, fingers trembling just slightly as I placed the drawing back on the pile.
This was what Maya was fighting for — what she was breaking herself to keep alive.
And for the first time in years, I felt that small, painful ache I thought I'd buried with my own past — the one that whispered how much easier it was to care when you swore you wouldn't.
I brushed a loose strand of Mona's hair behind her ear and murmured, barely audible even to myself,
"Your mom would be proud of you, kid."
The hearing aid hummed again — a faint static — before the room fell silent.
The screen glowed pale in the dark, washing my fingers in cold light. I hesitated for a long time before typing — not because I didn't know what to say, but because saying it meant something would start moving again.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Then I typed, slow, deliberate.
"I have the second wish…"
The message hung there, unsent for a few seconds, my reflection faint in the glass of the window. The rain outside hadn't stopped; it shimmered in the streetlight, dripping off the balcony railing like melting silver.
I pressed send.
Three dots appeared almost immediately — the man never slept, apparently.
Then the reply came, sharp and short, like his tone in that smoky pub:
"Then come make it count, Miss Keller. Same place. Tomorrow."
My heart gave one hard, precise thud.
Same place. The old pub in Dean Village — the one that looked like it belonged to another century.
I locked my phone and stood there for a while, staring at the rain.
"Life goes on.."