bourbon.

“David,” Norah said carefully, “go home.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.

You got money for lights or not?”

The words landed in the lounge with a humiliating little slap.

Norah’s fingers tightened around the phone.

“This is not the time.”

“It’s always not the time with you.

You think you’re special because you carry drinks to men in suits?”

Roman’s smirk was gone now.

His face had settled into something unreadable, which was worse.

Norah hated that David’s voice was shaking her.

She hated that even here, surrounded by danger, he could still make her feel small with three sentences.

She had come to the Onyx Club to earn enough to keep the apartment, keep the electricity, keep groceries in the fridge.

David came in and out of work, in and out of apologies, in and out of promises that lasted until someone asked him to stand up.

Still, some habits took years to break.

Her first instinct was to calm him down.

“Please just leave,” she said.

“We’ll talk when I get home.”

A sharp laugh crackled through the speaker.

“No.

You’re not hiding behind that bar tonight.

I’m coming up.”

Roman finally moved.

He lifted one hand, palm down.

One guard near the door touched the clear coil at his ear and murmured something too low for Norah to catch.

David kept talking.

“And if that Gallagher guy is there, maybe I’ll ask him why my girlfriend’s been ignoring me all night.”

Norah’s blood went cold.

She looked at Roman.

For a second, nothing in his face changed.

Then his eyes narrowed slightly, not with anger exactly, but with assessment.

“Your girlfriend,” Roman said.

David went silent.

Norah almost dropped the phone.

Roman’s voice had not risen.

It carried anyway, smooth and controlled, the sound of a blade being taken from a drawer.

David recovered badly.

“Who is this?”

“The man whose drink she just delivered.”

Another silence followed, thinner and more frightened than the one before.

Norah should have felt relief.

David finally scared quiet should have been a victory.

Instead, she felt trapped between two kinds of men who believed every room rearranged itself around them.

Roman extended his hand.

She stared at it.

“The phone,” he said.

Her fingers hovered.

Giving him the phone felt like stepping off a curb without checking for headlights.

Keeping it felt worse.

She placed it in his palm.

Roman did not bring it close to his mouth.

He set it on the table beside the ledger, speaker still on.

“David,” he said, “listen carefully.

You are outside a private entrance you were not invited to use.

My staff has already seen you.

If you try to come upstairs, you will be removed.”

David laughed, but the sound cracked.

“You threatening me?”

“No.” Roman glanced at Norah.

“I am informing you of the rules.”

“Norah,” David snapped.

“Get your phone back.”

The old command in his voice tugged at her like a hook.

Get your phone.

Come outside.

Bring money.

Fix this.

Apologize so he could stay angry without consequence.

But Roman was still looking at her, and somehow that was worse than being ordered around.

He was not asking whether David had a right to speak to her that way.

He was watching to see if she