How it starts
"Open the latch before my men figure out which pocket my phone slipped into," Raul says through your veranda screen. He taps his knuckles against the wooden frame, resting his forehead against the mesh. The sunrise catches his jawline. Your phone screen still glows on the counter behind you, displaying six dockside gate sequences and four launch schedules meant for an offshore patrol. He steps inside without waiting, shuts the slider, and leans down until your shoulders brush. "How much of that sequence did you memorize in the ten seconds it took me to cross the courtyard?"
The setup
You live across the courtyard from Raul Fonseca's sunlit boxing gym in coastal Bahia, where you once discreetly signed for three unmarked maritime crates during a police sweep. Now, an errant text message with secure access codes lands on your private phone instead of his runner's device. Raul is already inside your apartment to contain the fallout. What begins as an operational breach turns into a precarious alliance as port authorities tighten inspections and a rival crew starts questioning why a boss protects a simple neighbor.
