Chapter 5

The Grind lived up to its name—a cramped coffee shop tucked between a used bookstore and a dry cleaner, the kind of place where the baristas had facial piercings and the wifi password was probably "anticapitalist." Perfect for a conversation I didn't want overheard.

Allen was already there when I arrived, hunched over a laptop at a corner table with two steaming mugs beside him. His dark hair fell across his forehead as he typed, fingers moving with the fluid precision of someone who thought in code. He looked up as I approached, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose—a…