Chapter 5. Paper King

The car felt impossible on the pavement, as though it belonged to another world. It slid through the city with ghostly confidence, the engine’s hum a muted undertone against the clamor of cracked sidewalks and neon-tipped billboards. Inside, the tinted windows dulled the blur of traffic and the occasional pedestrian wrapped in a threadbare coat, their faces pinched against the wind. Everything beyond the glass seemed part of someone else’s story, distant and irrelevant to the quiet urgency of her own.

Her driver hadn’t uttered a word since she climbed in. Only when the skyline thinned—skyscrapers giving way to long stretches of coastal highway and the tang of salt on the breeze—did she break the silence.

“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice small against the sea’s rising whisper.

He kept his gaze forward, phrased evenly, “Mr. Wolfe’s residence.”

Alyssa’s fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. “And where exactly is that?”

He paused, glanci