The Man Who Wasn’t There

The café was small, tucked between two aging buildings along the Montevideo harbor. The air smelled of espresso and saltwater, the quiet murmur of conversation blending with the distant sound of waves against the docks. It was the kind of place no one noticed, where deals were made in hushed tones and people disappeared as easily as the tide.

Jessica sat at a corner table, arms crossed, watching Olivia scroll through lines of decrypted data. The glow of the laptop screen cast a faint blue light over her face, her expression sharp with focus. The breakthrough they’d been waiting for had finally arrived.

“This is it,” Olivia murmured. She tapped the screen. “Esparza wasn’t just laundering money for Vanguard. He was funneling it here.”

Jessica leaned in. Solís Biotechnica. The name meant nothing. That wasn’t surprising—shell corporations rarely did.

Leanna exhaled. “So, what do we think? Legitimate biotech company, or another front?”

Jessica barely glanced at her. “A front.”

She reached for her coffee but didn’t drink. Something in her stomach twisted. This was too easy. The file, the money trail, the convenient location—it felt like someone had left it open just wide enough for them to follow.

And then her burner phone vibrated. Jessica stiffened. Unknown Number.

She didn’t move. Leanna and Olivia stopped, watching her. The café noise faded into the background.

Jessica exhaled and answered. “Yeah.”

The voice on the other end was smooth, deliberate. Controlled.

“Jessica. You’re becoming predictable. I expected you to find this sooner.”

Her blood ran cold. She had heard that voice before. Monte Carlo. Casablanca. Istanbul. Always in the background. Always just outside of reach. A man in a dark suit, smoking with practiced indifference, watching. He never spoke. Never intervened. Until now.

Her stomach flipped. Her grip tightened around the phone like it was the only real thing in the room. “Mr. Black.”

A pause. Then, amusement. “Ah. So you do remember.”

Across the table, Olivia’s eyes widened. She started typing, trying to trace the call. Leanna was already shifting her focus, scanning the café for anyone out of place.

Jessica leaned back in her chair, feigning ease. “I was wondering when you’d stop lurking in the shadows.”

Mr. Black exhaled—not quite a laugh, but close. “You mistake me, Jessica. The shadows aren’t a place I hide. They’re a place I own.”

Jessica ignored the chill crawling up her spine. “What do you want?”

He ignored the question. Of course he did.

“You’d die for him. Admirable. But tell me—what if you already have? And we just… reset the board?”

Her fingers tightened around the phone.

“What if you’ve been in love before, and we took it from you?”

A sharp spike of nausea hit her.

“Wouldn’t that be tragic? A love story erased, over and over again, so we could see what would break you?”

The café faded. Her breath came slow, measured—but it wasn’t calm. It was a practiced survival reflex. Control the breath, control the fear. It didn’t work as well as it used to.

“So we could mold you into what we needed?”

For a moment, the walls inside her cracked. Her mind reached for something that wasn’t there, a feeling like déjà vu, but deeper. Older. She had felt this before.

No. No. She wouldn’t let him do this.

Jessica swallowed the doubt and steadied her voice. “You can rewrite my past all you want. But you don’t get to take this from me.”

Silence. Then, the faintest shift of breath. Approval.

“Good.”

The line went dead. Jessica stared at the phone. No. Not just the phone. She felt something inside her coat pocket.

Her fingers slipped inside and pulled out a small, smooth object. A white wooden pawn. Her vision narrowed. That old cold feeling hit—the one that said she was never out of his reach. Her pulse pounded in her ears

She never felt him put it there. Then she saw it—a folded note tucked against the pawn. Jessica unfolded it carefully. The same elegant handwriting. The ink crisp.

Follow the tide.

A code, maybe, or a warning. But not random. Nothing with him ever was. She exhaled sharply, looking up. Leanna and Olivia were watching her. Waiting. She placed the pawn and the note on the table. No words were needed. They all understood. He had been close enough to touch her.