He’d caught her just as she was getting home from work. It was still New Year’s Eve where she was, but America didn’t stop everything to celebrate the lunar new year, so to her, it was just any other night. She’d gained weight, he noted right away.

And that was when he discovered he did have an opinion in that regard. He preferred this version of Dawn to the thin version from their anniversary night. The soft curves he remembered were back, and his fingers unconsciously rubbed at the ball of his palm, wanting to touch.

He watched her pull a takeout container out of the refrigerator and heat it up in the microwave. No more elaborate homemade meals or hairstyles, it would seem. She wore her curls in a messy topknot and didn’t even bother to plate the food after taking it out of the microwave.

Maybe watching her wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. He had gone out of his way to break her, and it pleased him to see the results.

No trip outside to deliver a plate. He watched her sit down at the island counter with a can of LaCroix she hadn’t bothered to pour into a wine glass. Apparently, she was now a shell of the aggressively vivacious woman he’d found when he returned to Rhode Island for their anniversary.

Another thrill zipped through Victor. Watching Dawn was even better than the fireworks from the previous night.

However, his new thrill fizzled when he saw what she was doing with her other hand while she absentmindedly ate fried chicken with her left.

Was she…?

Yes, she was…she was drawing.

Victor brought out his laptop then and logged into her Amazon account. It was one of the delivery apps he still allowed her to use because he knew she wouldn’t be able to order alcohol through the Zon. Sure enough, it was filled with orders for art supplies: sketchbooks, art pencils, an electronic drawing tablet, and other miscellaneous items.

Victor went back to the kitchen camera footage, but there wasn’t anything new to see. She was still drawing. And she kept on drawing, long after her dinner was gone.

Eventually, Han came to Victor’s room to get him for lunch with some associates Kuang wanted them to meet while they were in Shanghai. Victor was forced to close the app on the sight of an unusually laser-focused Dawn pulling out her drawing tablet.

The meal took place in a basement bar that couldn’t be found on any websites or Google Maps even. No business was discussed. Mostly Kuang’s friends told them how lucky they were to have escaped to America and how tough things had been for the Shanghai mafia since the handover.

“We used to run this town. Now we can barely run our protection rackets,” one of them lamented.