The Warning

You find Daniel Cho at 9:31 AM in the lobby of the Mercantile Building, coffee in one hand, blueprints under his arm. He's twenty-eight, smiling at something on his phone, sixteen minutes from a stairwell that doesn't yet know his name.

You step into his path. He looks up, polite confusion softening into wariness as he takes in your face — sleepless, urgent, certain. The elevator chimes behind him. The stairwell door waits to his left.

You have one sentence to spend, and you don't know yet which kind of woman you're about to be.