The lights went up.
“I’m thinking we’re three weeks from eviction,” Emma replied. “And the only offer on the table is from Danny D.”
“Well?” she said.
Danny laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound. “Six days. One show. Fine.” He turned and walked back into the rain, the door swinging shut behind him.
Before Emma could answer, the stage door creaked open. Tina Kay swept in, shaking rain from her hair like a cat exiting a bath. She carried a manila folder thick as a brick.
The rain hadn’t stopped for three days, which was fitting, given that Emma Leigh’s luck had run out just as fast. The old theater on Wharf Street—her last gamble—sat dark and hollow, its velvet seats empty. She stood in the wings, running a thumb over a tear in the curtain.
“Not these.” Tina flipped the folder open. Inside were blueprints, permits, and a single photograph of a woman in a tailored suit standing in front of a restored playhouse in Prague. “Her name is Sloane. She funds endangered art spaces. We apply, we get the money, Danny D can’t touch us.”