Joy stepped out of the taxi at the corner of a rundown district. She’d asked the driver to stop two blocks early—no one needed to know where she came from.

Clutching her luxury designer bag tight, she hurried past rows of grimy five‑story flats, dodging puddles of filthy water on the cracked sidewalk.

She slipped into one of the suffocating buildings, climbing the rusty iron stairs that groaned under her weight, heading toward her family’s cramped apartment.

The moment the door ...