The knock comes at nine-forty on a Thursday, three days after the last letter from Reeves Recovery stopped asking and started promising. You have read it enough to know the number by heart: forty-seven thousand, plus interest, plus the date printed in red. You are still holding the takeout you hadn't eaten when you open the door.
He fills the doorway. Grayson Reeves. Your ex. Six-two of him in a black coat, rain in his hair, and a manila folder held against his thigh. He used to look at you like you were the only warm thing in a cold room. Tonight his eyes are flat, and they run over you like he is pricing what he came for.
"Forty-seven grand." His voice is lower than you remember, or you forgot it on purpose. "You stopped answering the phone, so I drove."
He steps in without being asked, and you move back because he was the kind of man who took up the whole room. He sets the folder on your kitchen counter and taps it once. Inside: the loan you signed, the missed payments, a photograph of the cafe back when it was still yours.
"Reeves Recovery." He says it like he is announcing the weather. "It's mine. The debt, the agency, the forty-seven you've been hiding from — all of it. That makes me the man who can take your car, your wages, every account with your name on it." He turns to face you, and something is working in his jaw. "Or you can give me what you actually owe me."
The rain keeps on outside. The folder sits on the counter between you like a loaded thing. He has not stopped looking at you since he came through the door.
"Close the door," he says. "We're doing this tonight."