PART 2: “They offered an alternative,” Robert Hayes whispered.

Lena sat frozen in the back seat of the black Mercedes as the lights of New York City blurred past the tinted windows. Her father’s words seemed to hang between them like smoke. Outside, rain streaked across the glass, turning Manhattan into a smear of gold signs, brake lights, and buildings too tall to feel real. Less than twelve hours earlier, she had been in her tiny apartment in Philadelphia, wearing sweatpants and planning to finish a paper for her graduate seminar. Now she was in a stranger’s car, beside a father who looked like he had aged ten years in one night.

“What alternative?” she asked.

Robert did not answer quickly enough

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