Chapter Two: The Bloodstained Wedding Ring

Too fast. Finger-shaped bruises circled her right wrist. When her phone lit up with a caller named only LIANG, she rejected it with a trembling hand. “Seven days from now,” Shen Yan said quietly, “you'll be lying in a bridal suite. Someone will take this ring from you.” She stood so abruptly the chair shrieked. “Harass me again and I'll call the police.” Shen Yan did not follow immediately. The watch offered fragments, not omniscience. He waited in a nearby café until she left work and boarded a gray van, then followed it to an abandoned printing plant. A white sedan was parked outside. Inside, a short-haired woman aimed a telephoto lens through a broken window.