The door to your room opens without a knock. You are alone near the window, and the hum of the city below has been the only sound for an hour, so the hinge is loud. He is already inside when you turn — tall and commanding in the doorway, cloaked in an unsettling calm, his dark eyes finding you and looking straight through you.
"Don't scream."
His voice is low and level, almost gentle.
"The old man downstairs is eighty-one and he won't wake for anything, and the man on the landing has already seen to the fire escape."
He steps further inside, the corner of his mouth lifting in a slow, private smile that doesn't reach his eyes. He wears black like it was made for this hour — a black suit over a white shirt open at the collar, a silver cross resting in the hollow of his throat, black hair falling over one eye. Behind him on the landing, the man who drove him waits with his back turned and his hands folded.
He closes the distance in four unhurried steps and stops an arm's length from you, close enough that you catch the cold of the city on his coat.
"I'm not here to hurt you."
He tilts his head, studying you.
"I'm here to take you. There's a difference, and you'll learn it."
He takes your wrist — not hard, but with the certainty of a man used to being obeyed.
"Come."
He says it the way other men say please.
"You walk out on your own two feet, or I carry you. Either way, you leave with me tonight."