The knock came at 7:47 PM on a Tuesday, which was already suspicious because nobody knocked on my door on Tuesdays. Nobody knocked on my door on any day, really. I'd spent three years in this apartment—a studio in Astoria that smelled like old wood and the previous tenant's cooking—and could count my visitors on one hand.

I was halfway through a glass of cheap Pinot Grigio and a rewatch of Succession, trying to convince myself that watching billionaires destroy each other was a form of self-care and not just depression with better cinematography, when the knock came again. Harder this time.

My body went rigid in that specific way it did when something was wrong. The same way it had known about the Caravaggio. Survival instinct wrapped in skin and anxiety.

I didn't move.

"Ms. Chen?" A man's voice, cultured and patient. "I know you're home. I can wait."

Of course he could wait. He probably had nothing but time and the kind of money that made time irrelevant. I knew that tone—I'd heard it in auction houses, in private viewings, in the carefully modulated speech of men who were used to getting what they wanted.

I should have ignored him. Should have turned up the TV and pretended I wasn't a person who existed.

Instead, I found myself standing, setting down my wine glass with the deliberate care of someone who was very much trying not to make this real.

The peephole showed me a man in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent, standing in my hallway like he belonged there. Like he owned the hallway. Like he owned the entire building and was simply gracing it with his presence.

Adrian Ashford.

My stomach did something complicated. A flip, maybe. A drop. Possibly both simultaneously, which shouldn't have been physically possible but apparently my body was willing to defy the laws of physics for this particular panic response.

I opened the door.

"That's a security risk," he said before I could speak. His eyes—steel-gray and absolutely certain of their own power—moved from my face down to my bare feet and back again. "You didn't ask who I was. Didn't use the chain. Just opened the door to a stranger."

"I'm very brave," I said flatly. "Also very stupid. You can check both boxes if it helps with whatever this is."

A smile touched the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a warm smile. It was the kind of smile a predator wore when it recognized another predator, or something close enough to count.

"May I come in?"

"No."

He came in anyway, moving past me with the casual confidence of someone who'd never been told no and didn't plan to start taking it seriously now. I caught his scent as he passed—bergamot and leather with an undertone of something expensive and dangerous. It wrapped around me like smoke.

I closed the door behind him because apparently I'd lost my mind.

"This is a fire hazard," Adrian observed, taking in my studio apartment with the clinical assessment of someone appraising a piece of art he was considering destroying. The single window with its fire escape view. The futon that doubled as a bed. The kitchen that was really just a corner with ambitions. "The ventilation alone is—"

"If you're here to critique my living situation, I have a Yelp review form you can fill out." I moved to the kitchen corner, putting the counter between us like it was a moat and I was defending a castle. "What do you want, Mr. Ashford?"

"I want to know how you knew."

The kitchen suddenly felt very small. My fingers curled around the edge of the counter. "Knew what?"

"About the Caravaggio." He turned to face me fully, and there was something in that turn—something deliberate and calculated—that made my pulse jump. "You looked at it for approximately four seconds. You didn't touch it. Didn't use a loupe. Didn't ask for any of the standard authentication materials. And then you walked away and told the auctioneer it was a forgery."

"I got bored with it," I said. "My attention span is garbage."

"You have a photographic memory."

"That too. Conflicting personality traits. I'm very complicated."

Adrian moved deeper into my apartment like he was exploring a museum. He picked up a book from my shelf—an old copy of The Secret History, spine cracked from multiple readings—and set it back down with the care of someone handling an artifact. "You also have an almost supernatural ability to detect forgeries. Which means you didn't get bored. You knew."

"Congratulations on your detective skills. Very impressive. You found my address, you figured out I can spot fakes. What's next, you read my diary? Check my credit score?" I grabbed my wine glass and drained half of it. "Here's the thing about knowing things, Mr. Ashford: knowing and proving are two different sports. I can