into bay one, where no one could see her.

Luca Moretti did not become her friend.

That would have been too simple and too foolish.

He became a customer who paid on time, sent drivers who behaved because they knew what would happen if they did not, and never again arrived without warning.

Months later, he came himself in a gray sedan with a harmless rattle under the dash.

Amelia found a loose bracket in fifteen minutes.

He waited outside the bay like everyone else.

When she handed him the keys, he looked toward the old photograph of her father hanging by the office door.

In it, Thomas Hayes stood beside a younger Amelia with a wrench too big for her hand and a grin too bright for the grease on her face.

“He taught you well,” Luca said.

“He taught me to stop for broken-down cars.”

“That nearly got you killed.”

“It also saved you.”

He accepted that with a nod.

At the door, he turned back.

“Do you regret it?”

Amelia thought of the rain, the hidden red light, Rafael’s eyes, the sound of the Bentley coming back to life, and the bank stamp drying in her glove compartment.

She thought of her father’s voice, stubborn and kind, still costing her trouble after all these years.

“I regret a lot of things,” she said.

“Helping someone stranded on the road isn’t one of them.”

Luca stepped into the afternoon sun.

Amelia went back to the car on her lift, tightened the last bolt, and hit the switch.

The bay door rose with its familiar rattle, loud and imperfect and still hers.