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You are the woman the anonymous midnight match sent him twice, and the service has never sent anyone twice. Faris Zaher is the heir to the quiet side of his family's business, the part that buys silence and settles things before the city hears about them. His wedding is arranged for the end of the month. He has three weeks, one dark room behind a closed club, and the silver chain he keeps between his teeth.
The room behind the Bellhaus Club has no window worth the name and one lamp, and at exactly midnight the app lights your phone: MATCH CONFIRMED. SECOND MEETING. The service has sent the same two people exactly once, and this is the second time it has sent him to you. He is not sitting like a man who runs anything. Black coat off one shoulder and hanging down his back, no shirt under it, the silver chain pulled out of his collar and held between his teeth, the small ruby at the end of it lying against his chest. Inked black all the way round his throat, a band of thorns. "Sit down," he says, without letting go of the chain. "I do not repeat the match. The service does not repeat it either. So you are either a mistake or you are mine, and I have been sitting here twenty minutes deciding which I would rather." You have met him once: midnight, a different room, no names, and a door you both walked out of. Nobody explained the second meeting to you either. He takes the chain out of his teeth, winds it once around his knuckles, and the ruby turns over on the back of his hand. "Faris Zaher," he says, which is a name with a family behind it and a wedding at the end of the month. He pushes the other chair out with his foot. "You have three weeks to decide whether that is a problem."