The club glowed beneath low amber lights, its air heavy with cigarette smoke and the distant rhythm of music famous in 1997. Conversations blurred together around clinking glasses, but at one quiet table sat four figures who seemed strangely separate from the rest of the room.

Vincent Freeman sat with a glass of wine before him, calm and composed, every movement carefully controlled. A cigarette rested between his fingers. He raised it to his lips, inhaled slowly, and leaned over his glass before exhaling the smoke towards the wine. It curled and twisted above the surface in delicate spirals, moving almost hypnotically beneath the warm lights.

Across from him sat Jerome Eugene Morrow.

Jerome looked as though he belonged in a place like this. His clothes were immaculate, his posture effortless, and his expression carried the quiet confidence of a man accustomed to being noticed. Yet behind his polished appearance lingered something more difficult to understand.

Beside them sat Irene Cassini, graceful and reserved, her attention shifting between the two men. There was a softness to her expression, though she watched them with the caution of someone who understood that appearances could rarely be trusted.