The city was warm that afternoon.
Sunlight bounced off car roofs, the sidewalks were crowded, and people moved with the careless energy of a normal day. It made Dombi feel strangely disconnected — like she had slipped out of her own life and into someone else's.
The black car wasn't behind her anymore.
Or maybe it was and she just couldn't see it.
She kept glancing over her shoulder as she walked toward Molefe's building — a grey, older office block squeezed between two newer glass towers. The last time she had been here, it was raining. The world had looked darker. Now it was bright, but her stomach was heavy.
She pressed the elevator button and waited.
Her palms were sweating.
The elevator doors opened, and she stepped inside alone.
By the time she reached the 6th floor, her heartbeat had climbed into her throat.
The hallway was quiet.
Too quiet.
Molefe's door — "Molefe Investigations & Legal Research" — was closed.
But something felt wrong.
The air smelled faintly of smoke… and chemicals.
She knocked.
No answer.
She tried the handle.
It opened.
Her breath caught.
The office had been destroyed.
Papers ripped from drawers, strewn across the floor. Filing cabinets overturned. The computer screen cracked. Molefe's desk flipped on its side. The couch cushions slashed. A coffee mug broken in pieces.
A struggle happened here.
A violent one.
She stepped inside slowly, her heartbeat thudding in her ears.
"Molefe?" she whispered.
Nothing.
She moved around the room carefully, taking everything in. Yesterday, Molefe had seemed tense — but alive. Today, this room felt like a grave.
She crouched near the desk. A trail of papers led toward the back room. Footprints — big ones — stained the tile with dirt.
She followed them.
The small back office was worse.
The window was smashed.
The curtain ripped halfway off.
Blood — faint, but unmistakable — dotted the floor near the sill.
Dombi's hands flew to her mouth.
"No… no…"
She swallowed hard and forced herself to breathe.
She checked every corner, every shadow.
Then something caught her eye — a single envelope under the broken chair leg.
Her name on it.
"Dombi."
Written in Molefe's handwriting.
Her hands shook as she picked it up. The envelope was crumpled, stained, but intact.
Inside was one thing:
A key.
A small, old-fashioned silver key with a number scratched onto the side.
"14B."
That's all.
No note.
No explanation.
Just the key.
She stared at it, her mind racing.
14B.
A locker?
A storage unit?
A room?
A warning?
Her phone buzzed suddenly, making her jump.
Private Number calling…
She froze. She didn't move. She didn't breathe.
The phone kept ringing.
Then stopped.
A message followed:
You should've stayed home.
Her chest tightened.
Her knees felt weak.
She backed toward the hallway.
Every instinct screamed run.
She reached the broken window and looked down. Six floors below, the street bustled like nothing was wrong.
But then—
A man stepped out of a black car across the street.
Tall.
Suit.
Dark sunglasses.
Hands behind his back.
He wasn't looking around.
He was looking up.
Right at her window.
Right at her.
Dombi's breath hitched.
He lifted a phone to his ear.
Her phone buzzed again.
Found you.
She backed away from the window so fast she hit the overturned desk. Pain shot up her elbow — but she didn't stop.
The man from below was already entering the building.
She could hear the elevator doors ding on the ground floor.
"Think, Dombi, think!" she whispered to herself.
The stairs.
She ran.
Down three floors, heart punching her ribs, lungs burning, sweat stinging her eyes.
She burst out into the alley behind the building, chest heaving.
A hand brushed her shoulder —
She screamed and spun around —
But it was only an old woman collecting boxes.
"Are you okay, child?" the woman asked gently.
Dombi swallowed. "No… I'm not."
And then she ran again — out into the sunlight, out into the city, the key clutched so tightly in her fist that the metal cut her palm.
Whatever Molefe had died for —
Whatever 14B was —
It was now in her hands.
And the hunter had just seen her face....