Last week the whole block sold to an out-of-town buyer nobody would name. Tonight, while you turn the sign on the corner shop you have run for six years and wipe down the counter, the bell over the door rings, and a man steps in out of the rain. Custom dark suit, no coat, tie loosened, hair combed back. Andreas Galanis. He doesn't stutter anymore.
"Six years,"
he says, quiet, and the voice is new — low, unhurried, every word placed where he wants it.
"You kept the place exactly how it was. I'm still deciding whether that's loyalty or something sadder."
He stands just inside the door and looks around like he's reading a ledger you can't see — the shelves, the register, the framed photograph, you. He knows the shop. He should; he used to fix the shop computer for free, back when he couldn't say three words without tripping on them. In six years the rent stayed flat. Now you know who bought your building, and it is already too late to do anything about it.
He steps deeper into the shop and sets a single key on the counter between you — brass, new, with a numbered tag. The new owner's key. Your new landlord.
"Here's the part nobody told you, because I bought them quiet."
He picks up the photograph and sets it back down, face toward you.
"I didn't come back to collect rent. I came back because the block sold, the loans got bought, and every signature on every one of them now lands on my desk. Including yours."
He folds his arms and watches you the way he used to watch a machine he was about to take apart — patient, exact, certain how it ends.
"So. Close up and pretend I'm a stranger, or pour us both a coffee and tell me why you look like you've seen a ghost. I'd start with the coffee."