Laughter still lingered in the air, sharp edges softening too fast, like smoke curling after something's been scorched.
But underneath it… Something shifted. Barely there. Like a guitar string tuned too tight, just waiting to snap.
"Think you could chill for a second, Leon?" Adam's voice was flat. But not casual. No, it was too… polished. Too fucking clean to be real.
Leon didn't even look at him when he poured another glass, half whiskey, half melted ice. His fingers steady, too steady. "I could," he said, calm as sin. "If you'd stop circling the room like a tomcat that just found a new toy."
Adam laughed. Dry. Hollow. "I'd say I'm more of an explorer. You're the one who gets twitchy every time I pass."
"I'm not twitchy," Leon shot back, low and slow. "I'm disgusted."
Boom. There it was. Pressure drop. Right at the center of the goddamn table.
Eris felt it in her chest, tight, suffocating. Like someone just vacuumed the air out of the room and replaced it with tension.
Nope. Oh, hell no. She did not come here for this testosterone flex bullshit.
Clara had gone silent. Mira had stopped breathing. Even the guy half-sunk in a bean bag chair near the window froze mid-crunch, chip suspended in the air.
Eris cleared her throat, rising a little too fast. Her smile? About as real as a five-dollar highlighter. "Excuse me. Bathroom. Face. Water. Whatever."
Adam grinned, pretending not to notice the atmosphere boiling like soup about to spill.
Leon gave her a single glance, cold, clean, precise. Like the touch of a blade right before it cuts.
She walked fast. Almost too fast. The door didn't slam behind her, no, but it closed too quickly to count as calm.
And once she hit the hallway, quiet, dim, away from that goddamn pissing contest, she exhaled.
What the actual fuck was that?
That wasn't just banter. That was two wolves sizing each other up with teeth barely hidden behind smiles.
A power play. With her somehow in the middle. Like prey.
Fuck that.
Eris stopped in front of the bathroom mirror, rinsing her hands first even though it was her face that felt flushed and sticky. The cold water helped. A little. Not enough.
She looked up at her reflection.
Hair slightly undone. Lipstick faded. Eyes, too loud. Too much going on behind them.
She hated that look. Hated being the center, not the spotlight. Not admired. Targeted.
If Adam was fire, Leon was frost. One burned. The other froze.
And she stuck right in between. Between the promise of heat and the bite of ice. The smart move? Walk out. Blame a headache. Make up a migraine. Go home, lock the door, and pretend none of this ever happened.
But… Yeah. She was never that smart. And way too damn stubborn to back down now.
She'd been in the bathroom for what, five minutes? Seven?
The mirror was fogged up from that sad excuse of a dryer wheezing in the corner, and the tissue in her hand had surrendered halfway through its job. Torn. Like her patience.
Eris glanced at the door. Go back now? Or wait 'til all the testosterone finished choking the air?
A breath. Slow, controlled. she pushed the door open. Not all the way. Just a crack.
She froze.
Wait. Did the music just… stop?
Her body instinctively shifted, just enough to peek out like a schoolkid sneaking a look at the hallway monitor. Head tilted. Breath held.
What she saw iced her spine.
Not Adam. Not Leon. Not their dick-measuring contest in disguise.
Someone else.
Standing in the middle of the room like he didn't belong, but also didn't care. Plain black shirt, silver hair, spine straight like it was wired to steel. His face was… sharp. Not the sexy kind of sharp. The kind that cuts. Gray eyes.
Not Darian's. But still… Why did her skin crawl like it was?
One breath.
That's all it took. Her instincts, the ones she'd buried under smiles and sarcasm and carefully planned charm, snapped back like a whip. The same instincts that had kept her alive back when her definition of 'safe' was a locked bathroom and a half-full bottle of bleach.
Danger.
The kind you feel before you see it.
The bar had gone quiet. Not the good kind of quiet. Not the respectful silence when someone drops a mic. No. This was fear.
Muted bottles. No laughter. Even the air stopped moving. Too heavy. Too off. Too… cold.
And the man? His eyes, met hers.
A second. Less. Enough. Her pulse dropped like a stone. Shit. He saw me.
Her foot twitched back, ready to bolt. But no. No way she was giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing her run.
You show teeth, Moreau. You don't fold.
Still. Her fingers were damp. Her spine, stiff with something between dread and fury.
Because that look he gave her? It wasn't curiosity. It was recognition. Like she was a name on some long, nasty list.
And now? She was lit up. Target.
Eris lost.
Not because she was scared. But because sometimes, survival meant knowing when to back the fuck off.
That man's stare, It peeled. Sliced straight through her pretty words, her sugarcoated ambition, the easy smiles she threw like coins to distract.
It wasn't just a pair of gray eyes. It was a goddamn scalpel. And the worst part? He didn't do a damn thing.
Just held her gaze a heartbeat too long, then turned his back like she wasn't even worth the second look. Like she'd already been processed. Filed. Categorized.
And then, gone. Swallowed by the crowd. "Shit," Eris whispered, lips barely moving.
She should walk away. Go back. Play drunk. Say she needed a smoke. Hell, even piss on cue if she had to.
But her feet?
Rooted.
Curiosity was the sweetest kind of poison. And She'd been addicted since ten. So she followed. Quiet. Careful. Heels muted, every step measured.
Fingers brushed her earring, subtle, almost thoughtless. A motion from another life, back when survival came with sharp edges and backup plans.
He led her past the bar's noise, into a narrow hallway where light lost its confidence. Flickering bulbs. Stained walls. Music dimmed into memory. Laughter, gone.
Then she saw it. A stairwell. Rusted. Winding down. The man was descending.
Down. Down. Wait… There's a basement?
A throb built under her ribs. She edged closer, breath shallow, hiding behind the wall just as he disappeared below.
A thick metal door sealed behind him. Silent. Like it knew how to keep secrets. Eris swallowed. The air shifted. Colder. Denser.
Wrong.
Like this hallway didn't belong in the same universe as the bar above. One step. Another. Then… Fuck this.
What the hell was she doing?
Following strange men into basements now? Did she lose her last brain cell somewhere between tequila and stupid?
She turned. Fast. But didn't make it two steps before… "Well, well, well... what do we have here?"
Voice. Male. Low, lazy, the kind that smiled with its teeth before showing you the blade. Eris stopped. Heart jackknifed into her throat.
He stepped from the shadows. Tall. Lanky. Leather jacket hanging loose. A fresh cut sliced across his cheek, red and raw. Smile crooked and dangerous.
"Fresh outta hell, sweetheart?" he crooned. "Or just wandered in, waitin' for the devil to collect?"
One step back.
Her mind spun, exit routes, nearest object, weapons. Heels? Check. Spray? Fuck. No. Useless purse.
She leveled her tone. Flat. Controlled. "Just looking for the bathroom." But he moved closer. And another figure slid in behind him.
Bulkier. Messy hair. Bruised eye. Lips twisted like they'd forgotten how to smile properly. "What'd you find, man?"
"A goddamn gift," the first guy murmured, eyes crawling down her body like a damn receipt. "One that walked in all on her own."
She didn't reply. Just braced. If they moved… He did. Too fast. She slammed her heel into his foot. Bone on bone.
A grunt, half-pain, half-shock. But no time to celebrate. The other guy grabbed her. Rough. Greedy.
"Let me go, asshole!" She kicked. Elbowed. Twisted like hell. But two against one? One second of distraction, and the first guy came back, face red with fury.
And something heavy… CRACK.
A blow to the side of her head. Metal? Wood? Cold. So cold. The world stuttered. Vision swam. Ears rang. Lungs emptied.
She tasted copper. "F—uck..."
Then…Black.
Dark. Still dark. But not the same kind of dark. Not the cold that seeped from concrete. Not the kind that came with fear.
This one… this one had rain in it. Rain dripping from her tangled hair down the back of her neck, slipping past the collar of her thin shirt like fingers that didn't ask permission. Everything clung to her, skin, fabric, cold. Like a punishment she never deserved but learned to expect.
Eris curled her knees to her chest, arms wrapped tight. The dead tree above her wasn't shelter. Just less wet than everything else.
Her feet were soaked anyway.
In her grip: a piece of bread. Stale. Dug out from the trash behind the bakery when no one was looking. The edge was rock-hard. The taste? Hell. Plastic would've been a treat.
But she ate it. Slow, mechanical bites. Finish too fast, and tomorrow her stomach might eat itself. Again.
Her tiny hands shook. Not just from the cold. From rage.
Rage at the world, at the bastard who used to be her father, at the woman who birthed her and never looked back. At the rich assholes driving past every day in clean cars, pretending she didn't exist. Like ignoring her was a goddamn act of charity.
through the curtain of rain, Footsteps. Soft. Precise. The kind that didn't belong in this part of the city.
And a shadow. With a black umbrella. Glossy. Expensive.
A woman stood in front of her. Her heels didn't sink into the mud. Her coat was spotless. Her hair pinned up like it had never met wind. She smelled like money and roses, barely there, but enough to punch through the storm.
Her eyes met Eris's. Worried. But not disgusted. Suspicious. Nobody looked at her like that unless they wanted something.
The woman crouched down, still careful, still clean. But her umbrella tilted. Just enough to cover Eris's head.
"May I sit for a moment?"
Eris said nothing. Her eyes did the usual scan, gut instinct. Anyone watching? A car? A camera? A creep waiting for her to drop her guard so they could take a kidney?
Nothing.
Just her. And that weird smile, gentle, but not fake. Lonely, almost.
"I brought this," the woman added, reaching into a paper bag. Bread. Real bread. Warm. Still whole. Still soft. Still smelling like fucking heaven.
Eris's stomach gave her away. Loud. Embarrassing. She dropped her gaze fast, chin tucked. Defensive like a cornered cat.
"Didn't ask. Don't want pity. Not a beggar."
Her voice cracked, rough from too much cold, too much coughing, too much goddamn reality.
But the woman didn't flinch. Didn't push. She just placed the wrapped bread on a clean plastic sheet nearby, then rose to her feet with that strange, calm grace.
"I know you're not."
Her voice wasn't dripping with pity. No savior complex. No sugar-coated condescension. And maybe that's what made it dangerous.
"Keep it. Or toss it. Up to you. But if you're still here tomorrow…" A pause. "I'll be back." She turned, walked away. Left faint footprints in the mud.
Eris didn't move.
She should've run. Should've yelled something cruel. Told the woman to fuck off for trying to be kind.
But her fingers? Already reached for the bread. Still warm. Her throat burned. From the cold. From hunger.
Or maybe from something worse. Hope. That stupid, useless, traitorous thing.
Cesh!
Cold water hit her face. Hard. No warning. No mercy.
Eris jerked awake with a choke, lungs catching air like it owed her something. Instinct screamed move, fight, get the hell up. But her body didn't listen.
Arms, tied. Legs, tied. Head… throbbing like someone had taken a hammer to her skull and kept going just for fun.
Fuck.
Everything hurt.
Blood trickled down the side of her face, warm and fresh, like her dignity hadn't quite clotted yet. Her mouth tasted like rusted metal and bad choices.
She blinked. Once. Twice. Vision blurry, heavy, wrong. But slowly, colors sharpened.
And the first thing she saw? A pair of eyes. Brown. Bright. Too damn close.
Then a voice, way too cheerful for this level of hell. "Boo!"
Her entire body flinched. A sharp pull, skin scraped raw by the ropes. Breath hitched in her chest, not from fear.
Reflex. And fury. He laughed. Of course he laughed. Like her pain was a goddamn punchline.
"Shit, you should've seen your face," he grinned, slapping his own cheek like a caricature of surprise. "Freakin' priceless."
If she wasn't tied down, she'd break his nose. No hesitation. Or maybe knee him where it counts, just to watch him cry.
Or both.
Definitely both.
Her glare narrowed, laser sharp. She didn't speak, yet. Didn't give him the satisfaction. But her chest rose and fell like a countdown.
This was the bastard who'd dragged her. The smug one. With the busted lip and too many teeth showing. Still breathing. Still talking.
Unfortunately.
He leaned back, still grinning like this was foreplay. "Relax, sweetheart. I'm not your executioner. Yet."
Then his gaze shifted.
Up. Over her.
And he called out, casual, like they were planning brunch. "She's up. You wanna talk first, or can I play a little?"
Talk. Jesus. That word hit worse than kill. Eris took a breath. Deep. Sharp. Her ribs protested. So did her pride.
Focus. This wasn't her first time being pinned, cornered, outnumbered. She knew how to sit in the silence and sharpen it like a knife.
But this time? This wasn't familiar. This was chaos in disguise. She didn't know who they were. Didn't know what they wanted.
Didn't know if she was supposed to die here, or worse… Disappear.
And the craziest part? Her brain, that stubborn, traitorous thing, It still clung to one question.
Those gray eyes. Where had she seen them? And why the hell did they feel like someone who should've never existed in this world?