Continuation of A Wolf in Silk with the concept of Toi toi toi (an expression used to ward off bad luck, often whispered like knocking on wood).

Title: To Ward off the Wolf
Summary: Haunted by Vincent Lane’s power and her own fear, Mira whispers “toi toi toi” before every risk she takes, as if it might shield her from his reach. But luck can only protect her so long, and courage must do the rest.

---

Weeks passed, and St. Leora shimmered on as if nothing foul hid behind the velvet curtains of its charity galas. Mira carried on at the Gazette, writing features about local heroes, restaurant openings, and the occasional human-interest piece that barely scratched the city’s polished surface.

But every time she pressed save on an article, she whispered softly under her breath: “Toi toi toi.”

The words, a tradition she’d picked up from her grandmother, felt like a frail shield of sound, a small ritual to knock away the shadow of Vincent Lane.

Sometimes, as she walked to work under the golden façades of old buildings, she would catch her reflection in a shop window, shoulders hunched, eyes darting, and whisper it again. Toi toi toi. Like knocking on unseen wood, like spitting out the bad luck that clung to her thoughts.

In quiet moments at her desk, she’d remember the call: Lane’s voice warm and unhurried, the threat wrapped in velvet. And each memory would tighten her chest until the words toi toi toi tumbled out like a plea.

Colleagues teased her gently about talking to herself. She forced a smile, claiming it was a nervous habit. But only she knew the truth: fear had become a silent companion, and those three whispered words were all that kept it from swallowing her whole.

And yet, even wrapped in fear, something stubborn flickered in her: a certainty that the truth mattered, even if the city itself seemed content to keep dancing under chandeliers, blind to the wolf in their midst.

At night, before sleep, she would press her fingers to her lips and breathe the words into the dark. Toi toi toi.

Not just to ward off danger, but to remember that courage still lived in her somewhere, waiting for the moment she’d dare to use it.

---

The whispers had begun the morning after Vincent’s call. Mira had woken before dawn, heart pounding, his words echoing like iron bells in her head:

“Don’t waste it on a battle you can’t win.”

She had poured coffee with shaking hands, staring at the cold sunrise outside her window, and found her grandmother’s voice surfacing in memory:

“When danger circles, Mira, say toi toi toi. Spit the evil away.”

So she did. Three quick words. Soft as breath, sharp as prayer.

The first time, the words felt thin and foolish on her tongue, almost childish. But something in them steadied her, like catching the edge of a ledge just before the fall.

That day at the Gazette, she whispered them before she opened her laptop, before she checked her phone for messages she dreaded yet half-expected. The words became part of her breath: a rhythm, a charm, a whispered pact with whatever small gods might still be listening.

In the silence of her apartment at night, she spoke them into the hush, voice barely louder than the hum of the city beyond her window. Toi toi toi. Against Lane’s threats. Against her own gnawing doubt.

But even as she whispered, the memory of his voice coiled in her mind: calm, certain, cruel in its softness. It was a warning, but also a promise, a promise that his power reached further than she could see.

And yet, under the fear, something stubborn refused to die. Each whisper wasn’t only a defense; it was defiance. A vow to herself that she wouldn’t look away, not completely. That the wolf might watch her, but she would watch back.

Toi toi toi, she breathed, over and over, until the words felt as familiar and necessary as her own heartbeat.

---

Despite the editor’s order to drop the Lane story, Mira couldn’t let it go. The photos from the warehouse were hidden on an encrypted drive; the contractor’s statement was locked in a drawer at home. At night, she reviewed them like talismans, each detail a knot in the thread of truth she was quietly weaving.

Toi toi toi, she whispered before she logged in, before she touched the files, before she dared imagine what would happen if she shared them.

Each image burned itself deeper into her mind: the shadowed crates, the logo of a shell corporation she’d traced back to Lane, the blurred figures loading what looked like medical supplies meant for the city’s free clinic. Supplies that never arrived.

She would close her laptop and sit in the quiet dark, breath held, listening for footsteps in the hall that never came. Fear stalked her constantly, like the echo of footsteps just out of sight, but the truth she’d glimpsed haunted her more.

Some nights, sleep refused to come. Instead, she’d find herself pacing her small apartment, the contractor’s voice replaying in her head: the tremor when he’d described what he’d seen, the hurried scrawl of his signature at the bottom of the statement.

Lane’s power felt like a shadow stretching over every bright street of St. Leora. And yet, each time doubt crept close, each time she wondered if she should bury it all and walk away, she whispered those three words, soft as breath but sharp as iron:

Toi toi toi.

It didn’t banish the fear completely. But it kept her moving, file by file, word by word, down a path she knew might lead to danger, and perhaps, if she dared, to something like justice.

---

The danger proved real soon enough.

One evening, as Mira left the Gazette, the city’s light rain misting her face, a dark sedan idled at the curb. Its window rolled down to reveal a man in a charcoal suit, sharp-eyed, silent. Without a word, he held up his phone: on the screen, a photo of Mira’s tiny apartment building.

She froze.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He rolled the window back up, and the sedan disappeared into traffic.

Heart hammering, Mira pressed her palm to her chest. “Toi toi toi,” she whispered into the wet night, as if the words could wrap around her like armor.

For a moment, all she heard was the rain pattering on pavement, the distant hiss of tires. Then the world seemed to tilt, fear crashing over her in cold waves. Her safe routine had been pierced. Lane’s warning had crossed from words to a silent, unmistakable threat.

That night, Mira checked the locks on her door three times. She pushed a chair under the knob, drew the blinds tight, and whispered the charm again and again until her voice turned hoarse. Toi toi toi. Not out of superstition anymore, but out of raw need, a desperate plea to hold on to courage.

Yet even as fear clawed at her, so did something else: anger. The photos, the missing supplies, the contractor’s trembling voice, they weren’t just evidence anymore. They were people being hurt. And Lane, sitting somewhere behind velvet curtains and polished glass, thought a single silent threat would be enough to silence her.

She powered on her laptop, the glow spilling across the dark room. The encrypted drive opened. For a heartbeat, her finger hovered over the delete key, but she didn’t press it. Instead, she opened a blank document, hands trembling, and began to type.

If she had to walk through fear, she’d do it word by word. And every paragraph, every whispered toi toi toi, became both shield and spear.

---

That night, sleep abandoned her. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering: How far would Vincent Lane go? How many had tried and failed before her?

And then, the darker question: Was she going to fail too?

The thought hollowed her chest like a cold wind. She imagined headlines that would never be printed, files that would vanish into digital ash, and a city that would keep dancing under chandeliers, never knowing what had been stolen from them.

Her grandmother’s voice came back to her, softer this time: “Spit the evil away, Mira.” So she whispered again, toi toi toi, her breath catching on the last syllable. But the words felt smaller than before, barely enough to steady the quake inside her.

She turned onto her side, clutching her phone, thumb hovering over her contact list. Who could she trust? Colleagues? Too risky. The contractor? He was already terrified. The names blurred together until they all felt equally fragile, equally unsafe.

Outside, rain streaked her window, each drop catching the amber glow of a passing car. The city felt endless and empty at the same time.

Yet as the hours crawled toward dawn, something stubborn sparked beneath the fear. If she stopped now, Lane would win, easily, silently. And if the threat had been meant to scare her off, maybe that meant she was closer to the truth than she’d dared hope.

She swallowed hard, sat up, and pulled her laptop back onto her knees. The files blinked on the screen, waiting. With shaking fingers, she began drafting an outline, facts, sources, and gaps she needed to fill.

Every word felt like stepping onto thin ice. But she kept going. Toi toi toi, she whispered into the hush of her apartment, as if each syllable could stitch a layer of courage around her fear.

Maybe she couldn’t defeat Lane outright. But silence, she realized, would be a greater defeat than failure. And as dawn’s first gray light crept through the blinds, Mira decided: she would rather try and fall than never try at all.

---

The next morning brought an unexpected flicker of hope. A message on her personal email, signed only “K.”

I know what you saw at the warehouse. You’re not alone. Meet me tomorrow, 8 p.m., Riverwalk. Come alone.

Mira read it three times. Toi toi toi, she whispered, pressing her lips to her knuckles.

She weighed the risk until dusk, finally deciding: better to face danger with truth than live safely in silence.

That night, her nerves tangled tighter than ever. What if it was a trap? Lane’s people luring her out? She imagined the dark sedan waiting again, the man in the charcoal suit stepping forward. Her breath quickened; her palms went clammy.

But another thought pushed through the fear like dawn through fog: What if it wasn’t? What if K really was someone else who had seen too much, someone who might help her thread this story together into something unignorable?

She spent the day preparing. She printed copies of the contractor’s statement, hid one in a cookbook, and tucked another inside the lining of her purse. On a slim flash drive, she saved the photos from the warehouse and slipped it into her coat pocket, taped behind her phone case in case someone tried to take it.

By sunset, the city shimmered under bruised clouds, lights reflecting off the slow-moving river. Mira stood at the edge of the Riverwalk, jacket zipped to her chin, heart rattling like a trapped bird.

She whispered it again, under her breath, almost like breathing: toi toi toi.

Then she stepped forward into the night, toward the meeting that might change everything—or end it before it began.

---

At the Riverwalk, lights reflected off the black water, blurring into smears of gold and white. Mira’s breath puffed in nervous clouds as she scanned the path.

A woman stepped from the shadows, tall and dressed in a dark coat, her eyes wary. “Mira Walsh?” she asked.

“Yes. Are you ‘K’?”

The woman nodded. “My name is Kara. I used to handle accounts for Lane’s foundation.” Her voice trembled, though she kept it low. “I have proof. Transactions, offshore accounts. But he found out I copied them. I’ve been hiding ever since.”

Mira’s chest tightened. “Why risk coming to me?”

“Because I saw your photos. You have something too,” Kara said. “If we bring it together, we can bury him.”

The idea felt like a lit match in the dark. But fear curled cold around Mira’s ribs. “He’ll come after us.”

“He already is,” Kara whispered. “That’s why we must move fast. Tomorrow. I’ll send everything I have.”

Toi toi toi, Mira mouthed silently as Kara disappeared into the night.

---

Back home, Mira waited by her laptop, heart pounding. At midnight, the email arrived: files, spreadsheets, bank statements that glowed on the screen like forbidden treasure.

She exhaled shakily. “Toi toi toi,” she whispered, as if the words could keep Vincent’s gaze away.

But luck, Mira realized, was only a cloak; it couldn’t replace resolve.

Her grandmother’s charm could ward off shadows, but it couldn’t write the story for her. Fingers trembling, she opened the first spreadsheet: shell company names she recognized, transfers timed days before the clinic’s missing shipment, sums that spoke louder than a hundred testimonies.

Piece by piece, the truth formed in her mind, uglier and more damning than she’d dared guess. Lane wasn’t simply siphoning funds; he was bleeding the city dry through a lattice of fake charities, contracts, and silent partners.

The cursor blinked at the top of a blank document. Mira hesitated only a moment, then began to type: dates, names, amounts. Facts cold as stone. The story she’d been too afraid to finish was now too real to ignore.

Outside, the wind rattled her window. Fear twisted her stomach, but she let it sit beside her resolve rather than chase it away. Her whispered toi toi toi was no longer just a charm; it was a promise to herself: to keep going, even when the night felt endless.

And as dawn’s light broke across St. Leora’s polished skyline, Mira kept writing, ready at last to drag what hid behind velvet curtains into the morning sun.

---

She gathered everything, Kara’s documents, her photos, notes, and testimony, and wrote. For hours, until dawn bled through the blinds, she typed the story she had once been warned to bury.

A piece of truth powerful enough, she hoped, to break the wolf’s silk disguise.

She hesitated over the send button, fear rattling in her bones. Then, softly but fiercely, she whispered: “Toi toi toi.”

And clicked.

For a breathless moment, nothing happened. The draft vanished into the Gazette’s secure submission box, the screen flickering back to her tired reflection in the darkened monitor.

Mira sat frozen, listening to her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. The apartment felt impossibly still, as if even the air was waiting to see what she’d done.

Slowly, her shoulders sagged. She wasn’t safe, not yet, but she had done it. She had chosen truth over silence, her voice over fear.

Outside, St. Leora’s skyline gleamed gold in the first light, its facades still hiding a thousand secrets. But today, at least one would not stay hidden.

Mira whispered the words again, softer now, almost like a prayer of hope rather than fear: “Toi toi toi.”

Then she closed her laptop, drew the curtains wide to let in the morning sun, and finally allowed herself to breathe.

---

The story went live the next evening, first on her anonymous blog, then shared by a dozen smaller outlets that weren’t in Lane’s pocket. It spread like sparks on dry grass: accusations, evidence, questions no one could now ignore.

Lane denied everything, of course, smiling, charming, the city’s darling still. But the mask had cracked. Rumors whispered through St. Leora’s marble hallways and gilded dining rooms. Donors began to pull back. A councilwoman publicly demanded an inquiry; a clerk leaked more documents. The network Mira had feared was now splintering from within, cracks turning into fissures.

Late that night, Mira walked the Riverwalk where she’d first met Kara. The wind smelled of rain, the water dark and restless beside her. Fear still curled cold in her chest, but beside it, something warmer sparked, a fragile defiance, alive and stubborn.

She pressed her palm to the railing, felt the river’s steady current below, and whispered into the night: “Toi toi toi.”

Not just to ward off danger this time, but to keep courage alive. Because the wolf had been wounded, not slain. And tomorrow, she knew, the real fight would begin.

---

Two days later, Mira received another email from Kara. “They’re coming after me. I’m leaving the city. Keep fighting.”

Mira closed the laptop, heart heavy but steady. The wolf still prowled, but the flock had seen his fangs.

And Mira kept whispering, every time she felt the fear rising: “Toi toi toi.”

Because luck might bend. But courage, once found, could keep her standing. And as long as she stood, the truth still had a voice.

She knew Lane’s allies would strike back, with lawsuits, threats, and quiet whispers to discredit her work. But the silence that once blanketed St. Leora had been pierced, and there was no going back.

Every day, Mira returned to her desk, gathered new tips, and spoke to people who would once have never dared to talk. Fear walked beside her, but so did resolve, a quiet companion forged in long nights and whispered words.

At night, as the city lights shimmered beyond her window, she would press two fingers to her lips and breathe out softly: “Toi toi toi.”

And in that breath lived defiance, memory, and hope, a promise to keep the truth alive, no matter how dark the wolf’s shadow grew.

---

(2,880 words)