He doesn’t even blink before mixing it. My usual.
I take the glass, swirl the liquid once, and take a small sip.
Cold. Sharp. Exactly what I need.
Then I lift my gaze and find Valera in the DJ booth, grinning at me like she already knows. She always does.
I tilt my head. A subtle point.
That’s all it takes.
We’ve been doing this since we were teenagers sneaking into the Den with fake lashes and fake IDs, but nothing else about us was pretend. Not then. Not now.
Three beats later, it hits.
The drop.
Low and filthy. The kind of bass that grabs your spine and drags it to the floor.
I smile for the first time in thirty minutes.
If they want to treat me like a child—my father, my uncles, Atlas—then I’ll give them the little girl they think I am.
I’ll dance like I never grew up.
Like I don’t know what the price of power is.
Like I didn’t just hear the man who kissed me like a sinner begging for absolution offer my name like a shield in a political war I didn’t start.
I slide off the barstool, my skirt clinging to my hips like it knows exactly what I need tonight.
The floor is alive. A tangle of bodies and beats. Writhing. Glowing. Free.
The Den has always been like this.
Untamed. Undeniable.
It’s not just a nightclub. It’s a legacy.
The Vipers might wear better suits now, sit at cleaner tables, speak in more polished tongues—but this place? This was our first church. Our first battlefield.
I took my first drink here. Learned how to sway my hips in a way that drew attention and kept it.
My mother once danced on this very floor in boots with heels loud enough to gut a man. My aunts grinding next to her like the queens they are, while my father and uncles cursed and growled and pretended not to watch with feral pride.
This place might be ours.
But tonight, it’s mine.
The crowd parts as I move, and I’m not sure if it’s the bouncers ghosting me like shadows or the simple weight I carry. The height. The tattoos. The don’t-fuck-with-me aura I wear better than most women wear perfume.
I don’t care.
Because I need this.
I need to move.
The music finds the hurt in me and turns it into something wild.
