“For who?”
She looks up, and that smile—soft, wrecking—cuts deeper than any blade. “For me.”
She kisses me then. Not rushed. Not goodbye. Just a brand she knows I’ll wear. Her lips taste like sin, like something I already can’t give back.
When she pulls away, her fingers hook the collar of my shirt. “You’re dangerous, Theo. In a way I could get addicted to.”
“Then stay,” I breathe, pressing my forehead to hers.
She leans back, laughing too sharp to be genuine. “If I stay, I’ll fall. And I can’t afford to fall for a man like you.”
Before I can answer, she opens the door and slips past me. Heels clicking. Doesn’t look back.
The elevator doors close, and the silence left behind is brutal. All I have is her name. And I swear—I’ll find her again.
Present Day
The flickering glowof neon outside my window pulses like a second heartbeat, throwing dull pink light across the walls of my studio apartment. The bass from the club down the street is faint now, just a ghost of the place I left behind four hours ago when I walked through the door, peeled off my lashes, and kicked my heels into the corner.
It’s nearly four a.m. and I’m wide awake, curled on a lumpy futon with a bag of frozen peas pressed to my ankle and a knot of dread I can’t shake.
The apartment smells faintly of cheap body wash and dollar store lavender spray. It isn’t glamorous, but it’s shelter. It’s also the longest I’ve stayed anywhere in seven years. Vegas, with its endless reinvention and crowded anonymity, lets me disappear in plain sight.
Most days, I work. I dance. I keep my head down. I send cash to a PO box in Flagstaff every month. No paper trail. No questions. No chance Lachlan Kavanagh will find me.
Still, even now, after all this time, there’s a bag packed by the front door.
Just in case.
I adjust the peas and hiss at the jolt of pain. The ankle’sswollen from a slip during my second set tonight—just a slick patch of stage beneath my heels, enough to throw me off-balance. I caught myself, spun it into the choreography, and let the crowd think it was part of the act. The cheers were louder for it. By the time I made it offstage, my pulse was steady and my smile in place, but the throbbing under my skin told a different story.
Strong women don’t show pain. Not in my world.
The sound cuts through the quiet—an angry buzz from somewhere across the room.
Not my personal phone.
My gaze snaps to the dresser, to the worn leather bag slouched in the corner. The burner. The one I swore I’d only use if the past came clawing its way back. My chest tightens before I even reach it.
The screen glows in the dim light, rattling against the fabric lining. A name flashes.
Kelly.
My brother’s wife.
My breath catches. She hasn’t called me in over a year—the last time it was something harmless, a message about a cousin’s wedding I couldn’t risk showing up to. I ignored it. Pretended I didn’t see it.
But now? At four a.m.? No one calls with good news at this hour.
I force my thumb across the screen. “Kelly?” The word scrapes out, dry, cautious.
Silence. Just her breathing on the other end. Then, soft and trembling, “Zara…I—I wasn’t sure you’d pick up.”
I don’t answer. My pulse hammers as I wait, dread coiled tight.
“It’s Declan,” she whispers finally.
The name cleaves straight through me. I jolt upright, clutching the phone hard enough my hand shakes. “What happened?”
