She looks up, blinking slowly, trying to focus on my face. "You're blocking my light, handsome." The words slur together. "Also you look like a narc. Are you a narc? We don't serve narcs."
"Marisol Delgado."
"Thass me." She raises her glass in a sloppy salute, spilling champagne on her dress. "And you are…?"
"Nico Rosetti, ma’am. I'm your new security detail."
The glaze clears, just slightly. Something sharper surfaces beneath the substances.
"Oh, fuck no."
She waves her hand dismissively. "I don' need security. Go away. Tell Marco Rosetti, tell whoever, m'fine. Completely fine." She gestures broadly at herself, at the champagne stains, at her bare feet. "See? Fine."
"I'm not asking for your assessment."
She tries to stand, wobbles badly, and catches herself on the table. "This is MY club. I can have you… have you thrown out."
"You're one stumble from eating marble, princess."
"I'm SITTING." She drops back into the booth hard enough to make the table shake. "I'm sitting down. On purpose. See?"
The people around her have evaporated like smoke. They know trouble when they see it.
"I'm moving into your apartment tonight," I tell her. "It's not up for debate."
"Absolutely not." She's trying to stand again. This time I catch her elbow before she face-plants. Her skin is warm under my hand, and something low in my gut tightens. A reaction I don't want, don't need. She yanks away, stumbles, catches herself. "Everything is… is up for debate. Do you know who my father is?"
"Your father's declining health is why your protection has been outsourced to people who can actually provide it."
Direct hit. Even through the haze, I see it land. Her face changes. The party mask cracking to show something wounded underneath. Her father. The illness. Her eyes go bright with tears she won't let fall. The tears remind me of Sofia, that last night, refusing to cry even as she said goodbye.
"Get out of my club." Her voice cracks.
"No."
"I'll call security."
"Call them. They answer to your father. Your father has an arrangement with my family."
She sways slightly, those unshed tears making her eyes luminous. The party girl is gone. What's left is furious and wounded and too intoxicated to hide it.
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know you've been here since nine PM. I know you've had approximately eleven glasses of champagne, plus whatever you took in the bathroom at ten-thirty. I know you lost your shoes on the mezzanine level and didn't notice for an hour. I know you almost fell down the stairs twice and off a table once."
She stares at me. For a moment, the defiance wavers. She's not performing. She's drowning. And I know what drowning looks like. I've been doing it for twenty-four days.
"I know," I say, quieter, "that you're not going to make it home alone tonight. And I know that's not new."
Silence stretches between us. Around us, the party continues. Laughter and music and the endless clink of glasses. But in our booth, there's just her shaky breathing and my assessment hanging in the air.
Then her chin comes up. Stubborn. Wet-eyed but unbroken.
"Fine." She snatches a fresh champagne from a passing server, drains half in one swallow. "But if you're going to ruin my life, you're going to do it on my terms."
She pushes past me, and I catch a whiff of her perfume. Vanilla and coconut, with champagne underneath like it's soaked into her skin. The scent hits me harder than it should, makes me want to lean in, to find out if she tastes the way she smells. I shake off the thought. Her path toward the exit isn't straight. She stumbles, catches herself on a marble pillar, keeps going with the determination of someone who's had too much practice staying upright when the world tilts.
"Try to keep up, soldier."
