Several men kicked it open.
It was Amy.
She stood there in designer rain boots, tracking mud across my spotless floor.
"Isabella, Dirk said you left some things at his place."
She flicked her wrist, and a bodyguard tossed a black garbage bag onto the floor.
Inside were every piece of clothing I'd bought him over the past five years.
Every last one, cut to ribbons.
"Dirk says all this junk is an eyesore. He wants you to get rid of it yourself."
Amy circled the apartment, her gaze sweeping over everything before finally coming to rest at my workstation.
That was where I kept my most prized authentication tools.
"So this is what you depend on to survive?"
She picked up a custom-made magnifying loupe and tossed it on the floor.
Crack. The lens shattered.
I'd scrimped and saved for an entire year to afford that.
"Amy, don't you dare!"
I lunged forward to grab the rest of my tools.
The bodyguards seized me, pinning my arms behind my back.
Amy walked up to me and slapped me across the face. Hard.
"Don't I dare?"
"A piece of trash like you thinks she can have designs on my man?"
"Dirk told me himself. He said the thing he hates most about you is those eyes. The way you look at everyone like you're checking them for flaws."
Her gaze dropped to my right hand. Something cold and vicious crept into her expression.
"I hear these hands of yours are quite valuable."
"That they can tell real from fake. That they can feel the grain of a brushstroke."
She jerked her chin at the bodyguards, and they dragged me toward the stairwell.
The building was old, Soviet-style. The stairs were steep and made of solid concrete.
"Isabella Fox. Without these hands, what kind of 'Divine Eye' are you?"
I fought with everything I had, screaming for help.
But every door on the floor had already slammed shut. The neighbors had seen the bodyguards and wanted no part of it.
One of the bodyguards shoved me.
My body pitched forward and tumbled down the staircase.
My right hand struck the concrete edge of a step with the full force of the fall.
White-hot agony tore through me.
I heard the bone snap.
When I woke up in the hospital, my right hand was wrapped in layers of bandages.
The doctor shook his head.
"Comminuted fracture. Severe nerve damage."
"You'll struggle to hold anything heavy from now on, let alone perform precision authentication work."
My mind went blank.
For an authenticator, your hands are your life.