Like this is routine. Like I’m already property being escorted out.
My chest tightens until it hurts.
He bends closer, voice low and certain.
“You do what I want,” he says. “And I’ll be generous.”
My vision blurs.
I focus on one thing.
The exit.
Then the club doors slam open hard enough to rattle the glass.
A gust of freezing air rolls in, sharp and real, cutting through sweat and perfume and smoke.
Conversation stutters. Heads turn.
My skin erupts in goosebumps.
A man steps inside, and the room shifts around him like everyone senses he isn’t here to play.
He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t search the room. He moves straight toward me, cutting through bodies with calm purpose.
I forget how to breathe.
Please let that be him.
Derek never showed me a picture. I wouldn’t know his face.
Please don’t let this get worse.
My lungs unlock anyway, heat slipping through me like relief I don’t trust yet.
Like the air right before lightning splits the sky.
His gaze locks on mine from across the crowd, and the panic in my chest stalls, replaced by something heavier. Something sure.
My pulse spikes so fast it makes me dizzy.
The guy beside me shifts, confused, then irritated. “What the hell is this?”
The man coming toward us doesn’t look at him yet.
He keeps his eyes on me like I’m the only thing in the room that matters.
I can’t move.
I can’t blink.
Something inside me, something that has been braced for impact my whole life, goes suddenly, violently still.
Like it recognizes safety before my mind does.
The man stops in front of us, close enough that I can feel the cold clinging to him. Close enough that the air changes.
Then he finally turns his head toward the guy gripping my wrist.
