The rain had been falling since morning.

Not the loud kind that crashed against rooftops like a warning, but the quiet kind?the kind that wrapped the city in silver and turned every streetlight into a blurry dream.

Lena Hartley sat beside the café window with her laptop open and untouched coffee growing cold between her hands. Outside, people hurried beneath umbrellas while taxi lights glowed like tiny stars in the wet streets of New York.