Chapter 2 — First Glimpses

Cyrus

The rain drummed steadily against the windshield as Cyrus adjusted the rearview mirror of his battered sedan. The neon glow of a pawnshop sign nearby flickered through the downpour, casting fractured light onto the street. Water cascaded down the glass, distorting the bustling evening scene into a blur of colors and motion. Cyrus, leaning back in his seat, traced the cracked edge of his pocket watch with his thumb. The cool metal was a comfort, its familiar weight grounding him. Watching and waiting—this wasn’t new. It was part of the job. But tonight, something about it felt heavier, as though the air itself carried a warning he couldn’t quite name.

Liora Castiel. Her name lingered in his mind as she emerged from the revolving doors of a boutique hotel. Soft amber light spilled out, framing her slender form in a glow that seemed incongruous with the rain-soaked world around her. Her long coat, cinched at the waist, emphasized her poise, while her heels clicked sharply against the slick pavement. To anyone else, she might appear like just another untouchable denizen of the city’s upper crust. But Cyrus’s practiced eye caught the subtle tension in her careful, deliberate movements—a woman accustomed to being watched, every step calculated to mask the wariness she couldn’t quite hide.

He adjusted the camera discreetly mounted on the dashboard, angling it to capture her as she approached a sleek black sedan idling at the curb. One of Elliot’s men, tall and impassive in an immaculate black suit, stepped forward to open the car door. The driver darted over, umbrella in hand, but Liora hesitated just a moment too long. Her hazel eyes flickered toward the shadows of the street, scanning her surroundings with a faint, almost imperceptible pause. The gesture was so brief it might have been missed by anyone else, but Cyrus noticed. Her hesitation, her quiet resistance, whispered of a woman who knew she lived under watchful eyes. Then she stepped into the car, her movements graceful but tense, as though she were bracing against an invisible weight.

“Not much of a life, huh?” Cyrus muttered, his voice low and sardonic, barely audible over the patter of rain on the roof. His camera’s red light blinked steadily, recording every second. He leaned back, watching the taillights of her car disappear into the night.

Starting the engine, he eased into the slow-moving traffic, keeping a careful distance from the black sedan ahead. Around him, the city unfolded in shades of gray and shadow, rain shimmering under the pale glare of streetlights. Neon signs advertising liquor stores and twenty-four-hour diners reflected in puddles, their colors rippling like oil spills. A street vendor stood under a makeshift tarp, steam rising from his cart as he handed a cup of something hot to a bundled-up customer. Cyrus’s gaze lingered momentarily before snapping back to the road. He’d learned to notice everything while attaching himself to nothing, but tonight, a part of him wondered what it would take for someone like Liora to falter beneath the weight of her carefully constructed world.

A few blocks later, the black sedan came to a stop near St. Aurelius Park, its sleek frame gleaming under the muted glow of the streetlights. Liora stepped out without assistance this time, her coat fluttering slightly in the wind. Despite the rain, her steps were brisk, purposeful. Cyrus parked a block away and watched her stride toward the park’s entrance, her figure gradually disappearing into the mist-softened darkness.

He glanced at the pocket watch in his hand, its cracked face reflecting the faint glow of his dashboard. The engraving on the back felt heavier tonight: “Truth is eternal.” A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as his thumb brushed the words. The truth, eternal or not, was rarely clean. He shoved the watch back into his coat pocket and grabbed an umbrella from the passenger seat. Rain splattered against his boots as he stepped out of the car.

St. Aurelius Park stretched out before him like an urban anomaly, a rare patch of green hemmed in by towering steel and glass. The cobblestone paths glistened under the rain, bordered by neatly pruned hedges and wrought-iron benches. Tonight, the space was eerily quiet, the usual hum of life subdued by the downpour. Cyrus kept to the shadows, his umbrella shielding him from the worst of the rain as he followed Liora at a distance.

She paused near the fountain at the park’s center, its stone figure streaked dark with rainwater. For a moment, she stood still, her head tilted slightly, as though listening to something only she could hear. Cyrus stopped too, taking cover beneath the canopy of a nearby tree. He folded his umbrella, letting the branches take the brunt of the rain, and watched her closely.

Liora reached into her coat and pulled out a small, brightly colored umbrella—pink with white polka dots. The sight was so incongruously cheerful against her otherwise muted elegance that Cyrus almost chuckled, the sound catching in his throat before it could escape. He quickly stifled the reaction, his gaze narrowing as a young boy, no older than six or seven, came darting out from behind a bench, his laughter cutting through the rain. The boy’s oversized raincoat flapped around his legs as he bounded toward Liora, clutching at the folds of his coat to stay dry. She knelt to his level, opening the umbrella and holding it over his head with a soft smile. Her lips moved—gentle words, though Cyrus couldn’t make them out from where he stood. The boy grinned as though she’d handed him the world.

Moments later, a woman—likely his mother—hurried over, her expression equal parts gratitude and exasperation. Liora passed the umbrella to the child with a quiet grace, waving off the mother’s profuse thanks. As the pair walked away, the boy clutching his treasure, Liora’s gaze followed them. Her expression shifted, softening with something tender and unguarded—a flicker of warmth in a life otherwise bound by restraint.

Cyrus frowned, his grip tightening on the handle of his folded umbrella. It didn’t fit. This wasn’t the picture Elliot had painted of his wife—a woman supposedly disloyal, selfish, or duplicitous. There was no artifice in that moment, no trace of the deception Elliot seemed so certain of. Instead, there was something else entirely. Longing, perhaps. Or exhaustion. And something about it made him wonder if the truth Elliot claimed to want would be the undoing of them all.

As Liora rose, her features smoothed back into the controlled mask Cyrus had observed earlier. She turned, walking toward the park’s exit with measured steps. He waited, letting her gain distance before doubling back to his car. Rain dripped from his coat onto the dark floor mat as he slid into the driver’s seat, water pooling around his boots. His jaw tightened as he replayed what he’d seen. The footage from the camera would confirm the scene, but it wouldn’t capture the details that lingered in his mind—the faint smile, the weight in her eyes as the child disappeared into the rain.

Pulling out his pocket watch once more, he turned it over in his hand. His reflection, distorted by the cracks in the glass, stared back at him. “What are you hiding, Mrs. Castiel?” he murmured, his voice low, almost lost in the quiet hum of the car.

Starting the engine, he eased back onto the rain-slicked street, the black sedan already swallowed by the city ahead. For the first time since taking this case, Cyrus felt something stir deep within him—a faint, restless curiosity. Or perhaps it was something else. The conviction he’d buried long ago, breaking through the surface in fragile, unexpected moments.

As the city blurred around him, neon and shadow converging in the rain, one image lingered in his mind: Liora, holding the child’s umbrella, her face momentarily unguarded. Whatever story Elliot had spun, Cyrus was beginning to suspect it was only the surface of something far more complicated—and dangerous.

The rain fell harder, relentless and unyielding, as Cyrus drove on into the night.