THE VILLA WHERE WE FELL

The email arrived at 11:47 p.m., which was, Amara Okafor would later decide, exactly the kind of detail that should have made her suspicious from the start. Legitimate opportunities did not slither into your inbox after midnight. They came through referrals, through people who used your name in rooms you weren't in, through the slow, unglamorous grind of being good at your job long enough that someone finally noticed.
She was still in her work clothes, sunk into the corner of a couch that had seen better decades, one lamp burning against the dark of her flat because she hadn't had the energy to get up and turn on the rest.