The words are still in the air when I realize I can't move.
"This is your warning."
Four syllables, low and calm and close enough that I feel his breath stir the hair near my ear. The office lamp on my kitchen counter glows a weak circle of yellow. Outside, the city hums through double‑paned glass. Inside, my heart slams against my ribs like it wants out.
I don't scream.
Later, I'll wonder about that—whether it's courage or shock or just the occupational hazard of spending too many nights alone with only the sound of my own typing and the occasional slammed file drawer for company. In the moment, all I can do is stare at the reflection in the glass: my own wide eyes, the faint outline of a man's shoulders behind me, the shimmer of something metallic dropping onto the counter.
A key. My spare. The one I keep in the potted basil on the fire escape.
His voice is behind me. His body is behind me. My phone is on the table, two steps away. The knife block is three.
"Don't turn around," he says, the words soft and eerily polite. "You don't want to know my face."
He's wrong. I want it more than I want air. My brain files details anyway: height a little over six feet by the reflection, build lean under a dark jacket, gloved hand when he set the key down, no obvious accent, though his consonants are crisp. My palms are slick, reading glasses halfway down my nose.
"If this is about the story—" My voice scrapes out, too high.
"It is." A beat of silence. I can feel him looking at me through the glass, like we're meeting eyes without actually meeting eyes. "You think you understand the stakes. You don't."
"Then explain them," I say, because fear is one thing, but condescension is another, and I haven't spent the last six months crawling through sewage for this story just to be told to sit down and shut up.
His chuckle is soundless—more a vibration in the air. "Consider this a courtesy, Ms. Hart. There won't be another. Back off." A half‑second pause. "Or we stop asking nicely."
Something cold skates down my spine. "Who's 'we'?" I push, because if I'm going to be terrified, I might as well gather information while I'm at it.
He shifts, the faintest rustle of fabric. In the reflection, I see just enough of his profile to know one thing: if I ever see that jawline in daylight, I'll recognize it.
"You have until publication," he says, ignoring my question. "Kill the story. Walk away."
"Not really my style." My fingers curl against the counter until my nails bite my skin. I'm shaking, but my voice steadies, stubbornness kicking in like a second heartbeat. "You broke into the wrong apartment if you thought intimidation was going to—"
He moves closer. My breath lodges. The distance between my back and his chest closes to almost nothing, heat radiating through the thin cotton of my T‑shirt. He doesn't touch me, but it feels like he could, and the threat is in that restraint.
"You have a talent for not knowing when you're already in over your head," he murmurs. "Ask your editor what happened to his last reporter who thought that way."
