Something's wrong. The dust has been disturbed. A glass sits on the table, pristine, no dust at all. Someone's been here recently.
Then I see her.
On the couch. A woman, young, beautiful, in a black cocktail dress. Lying on her side like she fell asleep at a party. Still. Too still.
My vision tunnels. The room tilts.
Not again.
My legs move without permission, the same muscle memory from eight years ago: check for pulse, tilt the face, try to wake her. My body remembers this choreography of futile hope. The velvet feels the same under my knees: expensive, soft, wrong. Even the temperature is identical, that specific coolness that makes my skin crawl.
Cool skin. No pulse. I tilt her face. Young. Beautiful. Someone's daughter. Like before. Exactly like before.
She looks like she's sleeping.
She looks exactly like the woman from eight years ago.
My hands leave marks on her skin. My DNA on her wrist, her face. I can't stop touching her, can't stop trying to find life that isn't there.
Time breaks.
I'm twenty-six, kneeling beside a body. I'm eighteen, running down this hallway toward my brother's terrified voice. The blue wallpaper swims in my vision, silver patterns that look like waves, like drowning.
Again. It's happening again.
The same position. The same terrible stillness. The same beautiful woman who just won't wake up.
I can't move. Can't stand. Can't leave. My hands are still on her, checking for breath that doesn't come, for warmth that's already fading. The word repeats in my skull like a broken record: again, again, again.
I don't know how long I kneel there. Minutes. Hours. Time has no meaning in this room. It never did.
"Marisol? The investor cancelled, he's not… Jesus Christ."
Logan. In the doorway. Taking in the scene. His laser-cut face expressionless.
The Calypso Room, open after eight years. His boss kneeling beside a dead woman, hands on the body, eyes vacant.
And on his face, for just one second, maybe less, I see it. Doubt. Just a flash, but enough. Logan, who has defended me for years, who's run my club while I self-destructed, who's believed in me when no one else did. Logan looks at this scene and wonders if I did it.
The doubt disappears quickly, replaced by professional urgency. But I saw it. That moment where he wondered if the disaster heiress finally snapped.
"Marisol. Don't move. Don't touch… you've already…" His voice sounds far away, like he's speaking through water. "I need to call security. Gunner needs to…"
I can't hear him anymore. The doubt in his eyes has finished what the body started. Everything drains out of me. The chaos, the deflection, the jokes that keep me upright. Gone.
I'm eighteen again, frozen beside death I can't undo.
I'm empty.
Different footsteps. Harder. Certain.
Then Nico's there, filling the doorway like an avenging angel. His entire body goes predator-still, and I feel rather than hear the growl building in his chest. His eyes take in the scene: mekneeling beside a dead woman in a room that's been sealed for eight years, my hands on her body, Logan still babbling about security and protocol.
But Nico doesn't look at the body first. He looks at me.
No doubt in his eyes. Not a flicker. Not a fraction of a second. He sees this nightmare scene and his only thought is getting to me.
"Marisol." Just my name, but it cuts through the static in my head. "Who did this?" The words come out lethal, promising blood.
