Chapter 4 Ada
The morning light crept through the thin curtains, pale and reluctant. I pulled the duvet tighter, the damp cold settling into my bones just like yesterday, but my mind was insulated by the memory of the café. The rich scent of roasted espresso. The way his tense shoulders had finally dropped when I spoke to him.
His name was still a mystery. In my head, I tried out a few—*Lars*, maybe, or *Erik*. Something grounded and steady to match the quiet intensity in his eyes and the thin scar slicing through his right eyebrow. I remembered the small, unguarded smile he’d offered me right before I walked out into the snow, and how it had completely transformed his exhausted face.
I was drifting back into the warmth of that memory when Auntie Bisi’s voice snapped through the apartment, sharp as the winter wind rattling the glass. "Ada! Are you up? We leave in twenty minutes!"
My eyes flew open. The lingering ghost of the barista vanished. I pushed the heavy covers aside, bracing for the freezing floorboards, and suddenly remembered her abrupt announcement from the night before. *We have somewhere to be,* she had said, offering zero context. Auntie Bisi was a woman of exhausting routines and solitary survival; I hadn’t known her to have friends here, let alone weekend social calls.
"I have a meeting," she had clipped when I pressed her. "You are coming with me."
I dressed quickly, pulling on my thickest layers, and hurried down the short hallway. The heavy, comforting scent of fried plantains and eggs filled the small kitchen, but my stomach was tied in knots.
Auntie Bisi was already standing by the front door. Her dark wool coat was buttoned to her chin, a severe black umbrella hooked over her arm like a weapon. Her expression was her usual unreadable mask, but her eyes held a frantic, vibrating energy—a rigid anticipation I had never seen before.
"Ready?" she asked, not waiting for an answer before turning the deadbolt.
The streets were slick with gray slush, the Swedish morning muted and biting. We walked in total silence, the sharp click of my aunt’s boots keeping a punishing rhythm on the pavement. I hurried to match her pace, my breath pluming in the freezing air, wondering what kind of secret could pull Auntie Bisi out into the cold on her only day off.
