Page 93 of Lethal in Pink

On my display, Amiyah doesn’t miss a beat. Unplugging her own laptop from the vanity setup, she carries it with her across the room, the camera bouncing slightly with her stride before she climbs into her own bed. She kicks off the last of her friction, pulls the heavy comforter up to her waist, and props the device against a stack of pillows, settling back with her golden hair spread out across the white cotton.

Suddenly, we’re both horizontal. Both cocooned in the dark of our respective oversized bedrooms, eight thousand miles apart, with our laptops glowing between us like a shared hearth.

“Comfy?” she asks softly, her voice hushed in the quiet of her room.

“More than the desk chair,” I mutter, shifting until I’m sprawled out on my back, one arm tucked behind my head while the other repositions the screen so she has a clear view of my face against the pillow.

She smiles, her eyelids heavy with the midnight weight of Los Angeles settling in around her.

The monitors begin to dim on both our ends—power-saving settings kicking in after minutes of inactivity, the glare of our screens softening to a low, intimate glow. But the call stays open. The connection holds.

My breathing evens out, the frantic pulse of the night finally bleeding out into the quiet chill of the Seoul winter. I watch Amiyah on my screen, her features softening in the dim light.

“Go to sleep,” she murmurs, her voice thick with approaching unconsciousness.

“You first,” I say.

She doesn’t argue. Her eyes drift closed, her head tilting slightly against the pillow, and within minutes her breathing has slowed to the deep, steady rhythm of someone genuinely asleep. On my screen, she’s just a shape now—a warm silhouette in the dark, the dark fall of her blonde hair framing her face.

I should close the laptop, drop the lid, and let the real morning come. Instead, I turn the volume down to a whisper, let my arm fall heavy across the mattress, and let my own eyes close.

The soft static of the open line fills the room—a thin, constant hum connecting Seoul to Los Angeles. Somewhere in that static, between one breath and the next, I cross the line into sleep.

We fall asleep like that. Together and apart.

Chapter thirty-three

Amiyah

The restaurant is the kind of place where the bibimbap arrives in sizzling stone bowls and the waitstaff doesn’t flinch when you order wine with it. A low wash of cognac-colored light clings to the edges of the room, banquettes upholstered in something expensive that doesn’t show stains, and a wine list I actually read before ordering.

I’m seated at a two-top by the window, alone by choice. A glass of Burgundy sits half-empty to my right, the bowl catching the warm crescent of the room's low glow.My secure tablet is propped against the bread basket in front of me. Thanks to the heavy privacy filter, the screen looks like a blank, dead piece of glass to anyone at the neighboring tables.

The table to my left erupts in a hiss of steam as a server sets down a dolsot bibimbap, the egg yolk trembling on top of the rice before someone jabs it with a metal spoon. Two tables over, a group of four is speaking Korean with the rapid, overlapping cadence of people who’ve known each other long enough to stop being polite. The sound fills the room in waves, punctuated by the sharp clatter of metal chopsticks against ceramic and the occasional burst of laughter that cuts through everything else.

My phone lights up with Penelope’s text:

Penelope: Hope you’re ready. File drop incoming so check your queue.

I feel my stomach drop the way it always does when a high-tier file lands. It’s fucking Pavlovian at this point. Ten years in, and my body still treats an encrypted notification like a starting gun.

A soft, two-tone chime sounds from the propped tablet, the encrypted ping vibrating slightly against the edge of the bread basket.

I press my thumb to the glass reader, the sensor flashing green as the secure server boots up. The new contract sits at the top of the queue, flagged with the agency's highest priority red marker, with Penelope’s digital sign-off attached to the routing data. I open it one-handed, fork in the other, scrolling through the header fields while I take another bite of the bread—sourdough, good crust, slightly too much salt.

Target name: Kai Ryu.

I pause mid-chew, swallowing hard before I reach for the wine. K-pop artist. International reach. The demographic data scrolls past: age, market penetration, social media metrics that would make a brand manager weep with joy. I skim the operational parameters—timeframe, suggested approach, recommended entry points—and then the payout figure loads.

My fork clatters against the plate hard enough that the couple across the aisle glances over. I set the fork down and stare at the digits.

It’s not a typo. It’s the kind of number that makes my chest go tight, the kind that flashes a single, heavy word across the back of my skull in my father’s flat, exhausted voice: retirement.

I force my eyes back to the screen and keep scrolling.

The reasoning section stops me.

It’s thin. Vague in a way that doesn’t match the size of the contract or the prominence of the target. Broad language about “business interests” and “competitive threats” where there should be specifics—names, dates, actual reasons someone is paying a fortune to wipe out a human life. I read it twice, looking for anything concrete, and find nothing. Just corporate boilerplate dressed up to look like justification.