Chapter 5 Smoke and Signs

The knock at the office door sounded like someone throwing stones at Elena's chest. She felt it there first, a hollow, then a rush of heat. She could not breathe properly for a second. The air smelled like lemon and panic.

"Who is it?" Zara called, voice thin.

"Security," Aryan said. He did not look surprised. He moved with calm that felt like a mask. "They picked up movement at your address. They say it's not random."

Elena's legs did not know how to wait. The two machines at home waited with old patience. A box in the shop might hold spice money, a relic of her mother, or both. "I have to go," she said. Her voice sounded smaller than she felt.

"You can't go alone," Zara said. "They're thieves. They might have guns. Let us-"

"No." Elena shook her head so hard her braid slapped her shoulder. "I'm not leaving it to someone else."

Aryan's eyes found hers. The look he gave didn't warm her. It was a look that measured risk and cost. "We'll send a team," he said. "Jordan will coordinate. If you come with us, we can get them stopped faster."

Elena saw the unasked line under his words. He was offering protection. He was offering control. She wanted to punch the glass tower and spit on his polished floor. She wanted to take his hand and run.

"Fine," she said. "But I go with Zara. Not with your men." Her fingers found the hem of her sleeve like a leash.

Zara smiled at that, fierce. "Good. Let's move."

They left the office in a line that did not feel like a procession. Jordan was already calling people. Leah moved like she had trained for every crisis. Aryan walked beside Elena for a few steps, then fell back. He did not speak. He watched her the whole time like someone counting breaths.

The ride back felt longer than it should. Elena's chest worked like a bellows. The car windows were small and the city was the same outside them-cars, people, lights-but the world had shifted, like a seam pulled tight. She kept thinking about the photograph pinned on her shop wall. Margaret's smile. The dress on the hanger. The thing that had once been taken.

When they pulled up at her street, a cluster of people had gathered. Phones up, faces lit by screens. Two men in plain clothes were lifting boxes into a white van. One of them had a ball cap and sunglasses even though it was late. They moved like men who had done this before.

Elena felt her knees go soft. Zara grabbed her elbow. "Keep breathing," she said.

Jordan's security team moved quick. "Cole security!" a voice shouted and someone pushed through the crowd. The plain clothes men froze. They looked startled. One dropped a box and tried to run. The white van door slammed. Phones recorded everything.

"Stay back!" a security man barked. He had movement and intent. He wore a badge that meant things could change fast. The crowd murmured. The two thieves reached for the van and for the boxes. Then hands came from the team and lifted them up. One thief tried to fight and got pinned to the ground. Someone yanked off his cap. The face under it was blank in the glare.

Elena moved as if pulled by thread. She pushed through the crowd, past the ring of security, and saw the shop window. The glass was intact, but the inside looked messy-chairs upturned, a pile of fabric in a corner, a board with sketches knocked to the floor. Two machines sat where they always had, one still with a smear of thread on the pedal. A box on the table had been opened and contents spilled: bolts of fabric, a stained postcard, a small tin of buttons.

"Get them to stop," Elena said, pointing at the men held now by security. "Those things are-those are mine." Her voice trembled and the crowd quieted like a curtain.

A security team member stepped forward, hand on his radio. "We caught them taking boxes. They've been seen hitting tailors in the neighborhood," he said. "But we'll inventory. We'll return what we can."

Elena stepped into the shop like into a house with the lights off. The air smelled like dust and old coffee and something sharp-fear. Her fingers wandered over the table where her mother's old sewing kit lay. Nothing too precious seemed gone at first glance. But the boxes told a different story. One had been rifled through. Another had been left with a loose tag fluttering at the corner.

She picked up the tag and read what was printed in neat type. Her breath stopped.

It said: COLE ATELIER - PROPERTY.

The words sat on the tag like a verdict. Her thumb traced them and she felt the letters like cold metal. "This isn't right," she said. Zara's face had changed then. Jordan came in behind them, eyes hard.

"We don't know who sent them," he said. "Could be fenced goods. Could be someone moving samples. We'll check the van."

Elena's head started to spin. Her mouth tasted like pennies. "Someone planted that."

Jordan crouched and examined the box. He lifted a cloth from inside and a folded page slid out. Elena snatched it before it could hit the floor. It was a photograph. Her mother stood in it, smiling next to a rack of dresses. Handwriting scrawled on the back: Stolen pattern, March 2006. Then, tucked between the folds, a small business card-white, clean-fell into her hands. She read the name without thinking.

Aryan Cole - Cole Atelier.

Elena's fingers shook so much she could barely hold it. The card was not proof. It might be a plant. It might be an accident. But it landed like a seed of a terrible thing she had already felt in her bones.

"You think they were taking things for Cole?" Zara whispered.

Elena wanted to scream. Instead she folded the photograph and pressed it to her chest like the thing it was-proof and poison both. Her mind flashed through the contract she had almost signed. Clause twelve. The cold office. The elevator doors. His hand on her wrist.

"Who brought them here?" she asked, and the question was raw.

"Driver's license says Sam T. Moreno," the security man answered. "He's one of a few names. He works with a broker who moves samples. We'll pull the feed and see who hired him."

Elena forced herself to breathe. Her heart hammered like a pedal. The shop felt smaller now, like something that could be folded and crushed. She thought of her brother in school. Of Emily at home. Of Margaret's name on the back of a photograph.

Jordan put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll find out," he said, and his voice had a steady edge that meant things would move.

Elena lifted her eyes to where the street light hit the window. A stranger in the crowd was recording them, his face blank. At the corner of the table, a scrap of red fabric fluttered. Elena reached for it. It had a thin stitch in gold. She knew that stitch.

It was the same tiny stitch Aryan had traced in the studio-she could see it again in her head: the way it held the shoulder. Her mouth went dry. The shop had held her world. Now it held a sign she could not ignore.

Someone called out-something about cameras in the alley. The van driver was cuffed. The men were being led away. But Elena's hands were full of pieces that fit together poorly. A tag. A photograph. A business card.

She pressed the photograph to her lips like a small, bitter prayer. "Someone wants me to know," she said, voice small and steady like a thread being pulled taut. "Someone wants me to know who did this."

Across the street, under a flicker of neon, a figure watched with hands in his pockets. He smiled the sort of small smile that meant he had turned a page.

Elena looked up at the figure and, for the first time, saw him clearly-the man who had the power to make announcements, to buy stories, to take names. He was at the corner, unhurried. His suit caught the streetlight like a promise.

Her breath hitched.

He met her eyes for half a second and then turned away.

She did not know if he smiled or not. But she knew the shape of betrayal now. And she knew the war had begun