Steven stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, drying himself up.

After he was done, he dressed up and collapsed on the bed, feeling mentally exhausted.

He brought his hands to his face but he didn’t see it covered with blood like when he was in the bathroom. But it didn’t mean that he wasn’t thinking about it.

Hargreaves had told him to live his day and not bother about the details, but it was easier said that done.

His body felt extremely light, he had no appetite and his hand was Webb shaking when he was driving home.

It took every everything he had for him to arrive home safely.

He thought of everything that had transpired, wondering if he could had chosen a different route and not give himself the kill or be killed justification.

But even as he thought about other possible scenarios, he knew that he would definitely come back to the decision he had made.

Drew had been ready to kill him. Steven saw it in his eyes. He saw his determined he was and he felt that if he hadn’t acted as he did, he would be the one on the floor, with a bullet in his body.

He didn’t regret killing Drew. What he regretted was the two men that died without him intending to kill them. That’s something he would have to learn how to live with.

Steven sighed heavily. He decided not to think about the incident anymore and relax himself.

He slowly stood up from the sofa and walked to the living room, to game until his appetite returns.

***

Nearly seven hours had passed since Steven started gaming and he hasn’t moved since he sat down. He hasn’t even eaten and he still wasn’t feeling hungry.

He had chatted with Lena as he gamed and he made sure to act as he would normally do, so that he doesn’t alarm her and get her worried.

He also contacted Raymond, apologised for not showing up and all informed him that he won’t be available for the rest of the week or the next.

Already tired of gaming, he dropped the controller and sighed heavily, the incident still weighing on his mind.

His phone started ringing, breaking his line of thoughts. He looked at the phone and he saw that it was Hargreaves that was calling.

He picked the call without a moment of hesitation.

"Mr. Craig," Hargreaves said. "How are you holding up?"

"I’m fine," Steven said flatly.

There was a brief pause on Hargreaves’s end acknowledged that and moved past it.

"I’m calling as I said I would. The matter we discussed has been attended to. You don’t need to think about that building again," He said.

Steven said nothing for a moment, as he exhaled very slowly through his nose, in relief.

"The federal process," Hargreaves continued, "is moving. You’ll have confirmation of that through the appropriate channels in due course. The investigation documentation met the standard we needed. The right people have received it."

"And Richard Mercer?" Steven asked.

"A man who is about to become the subject of a federal investigation into cartel money laundering, with twelve years of documented transactions against his name, has to make a calculation. Every action he takes from this point forward becomes part of that record. Ordering retaliation while federal eyes are moving toward him is not a calculation a rational man makes."

"And if he’s not rational right now?" Steven asked.

"That," Hargreaves said, "is why the security arrangements I mentioned are already in place. As of this afternoon, there are three people in your building. You will not see them. You will not know which residents they are posing as. But they are there, and they are very good at what they do."

Steven looked at the window. The afternoon city moved at its own pace beyond the glass, entirely indifferent.

"And Lena?" he asked.

"Also covered," Hargreaves said. "Two of our people are on her building as of an hour ago. Her office has been discreetly assessed. She is, for now, not a variable Richard Mercer is focused on. His attention at this moment is singular."

The word landed with the weight it was meant to carry.

"Me," Steven said.

"You but he has no idea who you are yet," Hargreaves confirmed. "Which is precisely why I need you to remain inside your apartment for the remainder of today and tonight. Not permanently. Not even for long. Just until the federal submission is received and acknowledged, which should happen before this time tomorrow. Once it does, the landscape changes considerably and your exposure reduces sharply."

Steven looked at the controller on the coffee table. At the city through the window. At his hands resting on his knees, entirely still now, the shaking long gone.

"One more thing," Hargreaves said, and his voice shifted slightly.

Steven waited.

"What you did this morning was not something most people could have managed. The composure, the clarity under that kind of pressure, the decision-making." He paused.

The words landed somewhere in Steven’s chest and sat there. He had no immediate answer for them.

"Thank you, Hargreaves," he said quietly.

"Get some rest," Hargreaves said. "I’ll call you when the submission is confirmed. Stay inside. Don’t open the door to anyone you’re not expecting."

"Understood," Steven said.

"Good evening, Mr. Craig."

The call ended.

Steven set the phone face down on the cushion beside him and sat in the quiet of the apartment for a long moment.

Outside, the city pressed on in its evening register, indifferent and continuous.

And somewhere inside Steven, something that had been tightly wound since the early morning had loosened by a single, careful degree.

Now feeling better than before, Steven stood up and walked to the kitchen. He had decided to cook something to eat. He wasn’t really hungry but he was going to force himself to eat.

Walking into the kitchen, he opened the fridge and looked through the ingredients he had, but he immediately felt too weak to cook anything.

He closed the fridge, walked back to the sofa and picked up his phone, to order food.

After he was done placing the order, he waited.

He got a call from the front desk twenty minutes later and he picked up.

"Mr. Craig, good evening." The front desk staff said. "There’s a delivery here for you. A meal order. Shall I send the courier up directly?"

Steven considered it for half a second.

"No," he said. "Don’t send the courier up. Receive the order at the desk and have one of the — " he paused, choosing the word carefully " — building staff bring it up to me."

A brief pause on the other end. It was brief enough that a person paying less attention might not have caught it.

"Of course, Mr. Craig," she said, smoothly. "We’ll have that brought up to you shortly."

"Thank you," he said, and ended the call.

He set the phone back down on the cushion and looked at the door.

He had no idea which of the people currently occupying his building were Hargreaves’s people and which were simply residents going about a Wednesday evening in the way residents did. That was, presumably, the point. But asking the front desk to have building staff deliver the food rather than a courier they had never vetted was the kind of small, correct instinct that cost nothing and was worth something.

He sat back and waited.

Seven minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Two knocks, measured and even.

He stood, walked to the door, and looked through the peephole.

A man in a plain dark jacket stood in the hallway, a paper delivery bag in one hand, his other hand visible at his side.

Steven opened the door.

The man held out the bag. His eyes moved once, briefly across the apartment entrance behind Steven and back.

"Mr. Craig," he said simply.

"Thank you," Steven said, taking the bag.

The man nodded once, turned, and walked back down the hallway with the same unhurried pace he had arrived with. He didn’t look back.

Steven watched him go for a moment, then closed the door and turned the lock.

He carried the bag to the kitchen, set it on the counter, and opened it. The smell reached him before he had the container fully open and his stomach, which had spent the entire day convincingly pretending it had no interest in food, registered an involuntary response to it.

He found a plate in the cabinet, transferred the food onto it, and carried it to the dining table.

He sat down, looked at the plate, and picked up his fork.