The air shifted. Denser. Sharper.
Even the light carried weight.
“Hey.” Marco’s voice cut through the static in her mind: quiet, steady, grounding. “You okay?”
Arden turned toward him, managing a nod. “Yeah. Just…” She gestured vaguely, the movement more reflex than explanation.
Marco didn’t press. He slid a row of clean tumblers onto the shelf and started drying another, his presence a calm counterweight to the unease lodged beneath her skin.
“One of those nights?”
She huffed a breath. Somewhere between a laugh and an exhale. “Something like that.”
He tilted his head, watching her with the kind of patience you couldn’t fake. “You’ve got this.”
Her throat tightened, just a little. She pushed it down. “You think?”
Marco gave a lazy shrug, his grin crooked. “I know. Few weeks in, and you’re running circles around half the old guard. You read this place like you wrote the damn manual.”
The compliment settled into her chest. Unexpected. Disarming.
She worked to prove herself, sure. But this was different. This wasn’t about impressing anyone.
It was about finally finding a place where being sharp didn’t make you a threat. It made you essential.
She offered a small smile, eyes scanning the room again. Still moving. Still watchful.
“Thanks, Marco.”
His nod was subtle. “Anytime.”
Then, quietly, as he walked past: “Whatever’s got you off tonight—just remember who you are. You’ve got nothing to prove to these people.”
She stood a little straighter after that.
Because he was right.
But as she poured a drink for a table of lawyers whispering behind raised glasses, that sense of being watched hadn’t left.
It wasn’t Arty. Not tonight. Not entirely.
Another presence had crept in through the cracks. She couldn’t name it, but it felt personal.
The text burned in her mind.
Starting over doesn’t erase the past.
No threats. No demands.
Just a reminder.
The heavy oakdoors opened on a hush, letting in the soft spill of city sound and the flicker of passing headlights.
Sebastian Hawthorne stepped into the room like he owned it.
His tailored suit caught the chandelier’s glow, but it was the Hawthorne signet ring on his hand that caught the light. Subtle. Deliberate. A reminder. A claim.
That detail wouldn’t matter to most.
