La Chambre Rouge

Paris held its breath at night.

Colby knew it the moment he stepped into the alley, where the walls sweated wine and ash, and a sliver of neon glowed like a blade through the fog. He shouldn’t have been there. Not in that arrondissement. Not in those boots. Not chasing a stranger he hadn’t even seen, only followed; first at the café, then through the metro tunnel, then into the streetlight-streaked dark.

But there’d been a signal. The way the man had looked back; once; then disappeared down a corridor between two shuttered bakeries. No name. No invitation. Just a promise made with eyes alone.

Colby followed.

He passed a closed bookshop and a bar still humming with tourists. When he found the door, it wasn’t marked. Just iron. A faint red glow leaked out from the crack beneath it like smoke.

He hesitated, heart low in his chest. Then he pushed.