1
AMBER
I’m three drinks deep into the rush when I notice Rose hasn’t touched her mocktail.
I lift my brows in concern. This is not like her.
Around us, Notte Bianca hums the way it always does on a weeknight—low conversation, soft jazz, the clink of cutlery and glass. The lights are warm, forgiving. The kind that make everyone look a little better than they really are. I’m behind the bar, moving on muscle memory, pouring drinks for the table in the corner without needing to look twice.
Whiskey neat. Bourbon on the rocks. Negroni sbagliato.
I slide the glasses onto a tray and glance back at Rose.
She’s perched on her usual stool at the counter, shoulders slightly hunched, hands wrapped around her glass like she’s trying to make it last all night. The lime wedge hasn’t moved. The straw’s still pristine. She’s staring into the liquid instead of drinking it.
“You gonna finish that, or is it just for decoration?” I ask.
She blinks, then smiles too fast. “I’m pacing myself.”
It’s a lie. Not a big one. But I know her tells.
Rose Brown doesn’t pace herself. Rose Brown nurses nothing. She’s the kind of person who commits fully or not at all, whether it’s a new flower arrangement or a bad idea. Mocktails included.
I keep working, but my chest tightens in worry.
“I feel like I’m being followed.”
Rose had told me last week. Quietly. Like it was a half-formed thought she didn’t want to give too much space. She’d said it with a laugh, like she expected me to brush it off. Like she wanted me to. I hadn’t. I’d asked all the questions that came to mind. What does he look like? When does it happen? Did she tell anyone else?
She’d shut it down immediately.
“I don’t want to make it a thing, Amber.”Which was Rose-speak code forI don’t want anyone getting involved.Her mess, hers to fix. Like she always does.
Even now, when I bring it up, she gives me half-answers and plays it off with a laugh. Like she’s silently begging me to stop digging.
So here we are. Me pretending everything’s normal. Her pretending she’s fine. The unspoken tension sitting between us like a third person at the bar.
I hate it.
Feeling powerless always makes my skin itch. I don’t do well with waiting. Or not knowing. Or watching someone I care about spiral quietly while insisting they’ve got everything under control.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt like this.
The memory sneaks up on me the way it always does. Uninvited and sharp.
Coral.
Three years ago, my older sister disappeared. It started the same way it’s starting now. Unease, jittery energy. Brushing offquestions like they were nothing. It was odd, because Coral had never been that type of person. She’d been the sun itself, bright enough to blind you if you weren’t careful.
Then she started coming home from track practice wound tight, eyes flicking to every shadow on the walk back. She laughed it off when I asked what was wrong. Told me I was being dramatic.
I was seventeen. She was eighteen. Old enough to think she was untouchable. And despite the measly year between us, I’d thought she was untouchable too.
Then came the man in the red dress shirt.
I only saw him a couple of times. Always the same place. Leaning under a lamppost like he had nowhere else to be. Like he was waiting for something. Or someone.
Soon after, my sister didn’t come home from track practice.
