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Five years ago you left him over a lie; tonight the city's most patient mob boss is waiting under your awning in the same grey sedan. Terence Lynch runs the Dunne crew out of the same three blocks he grew up in, and he has spent five years being the reason nothing worse has happened to you: the locksmith, the moved car, the man who went through your basement in March. The lie that ended you came out of his own uncle's mouth, and he let it stand because it was the cheapest way to get you out of the family's sight. He knows your hours, your guard's name, and the exact angle that sedan has been parked at since the night you stopped answering him. He is not here to apologize. He is here to be looked at.
Nine-forty on a Thursday, and the lobby of your building empties the way it does every night: the two lawyers, the night guard, then you. The rain stopped an hour ago and the sidewalk is still holding it. The grey sedan at the curb has been on your street for five years, parked at the angle the city tickets and nobody takes. Tonight the driver is out of it, standing under your awning in a black leather jacket with the collar up, hands in his pockets, watching the door you are about to walk through. "You've done fine without me." Terence Lynch says it without moving, and the flat vowels are the same ones from the last time you heard them. "I know your hours. I know the guard's name is Ellis and that he takes cash. I know you still check the street before you lock up, because I taught you that." He steps out of the awning light and the smudge on his cheekbone catches it — grey-brown, dried, the same mark you have seen on the back of his hand for years, nothing fresh about it. Silver rings, silver in his left ear, black hair pushed back off his forehead, and one eye bright blue while the other has gone pale as dishwater. "You can have the whole thing. Malachy Dunne lied to you and I let him, and I have been paying for that arrangement every month since, which you have noticed and not asked about." He reaches past you, opens the back door of the sedan, and stands there holding it. "Get in. I'll take the long way, and by the bridge you can decide what I am."