(Manhattan, New York — Present Day)
The wipers swept across the windshield, smearing the cobalt-blue logo of the neon sign — Davies Global — into a ghostly blur. In the back seat of a black Bentley, Aria Sterling wiped a patch of fog with her fingertip. Behind her gold-rimmed glasses, her gaze was a scalpel, dissecting the 57-story glass tower.
"Identity verified at Tier Three, Eva Reed." The encrypted tablet on the front seat pulsed green. "Welcome to the Strategic Investment Division of Davies, Ms. Sterling."
"Call me Eva," Alia's cut the transmission. A stranger's face stared back at her from the rearview mirror: platinum blonde hair cropped sharply at the jawline, Armani suit in gunmetal gray, its seams tracing clean, razor-edged shoulders. Ten years in hiding — from a finance PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands — had built the perfect illusion: Eva , a fictional elite, a corporate surgeon fluent in crisis takeovers.
As her heels clicked across the marble lobby of Davies, she pressed a small key into her palm — the key to Marta's urn. Her old housekeeper had died three weeks ago in a so-called "home invasion." The autopsy showed broken ribs consistent with professional interrogation.