flood of messages appeared.

Answer me.

Don’t embarrass me.

I know you can hear me.

Then one that made her fingers go numb.

I have your envelope.

She must have made some sound, because Roman’s attention sharpened.

“What envelope?” he asked.

Norah locked the screen against her apron as if that could hide the words already burned into her face.

“Nothing.”

“Norah.”

It was the first time he had used her name.

She hated that he knew it.

She hated that it steadied her.

“It’s my rent money,” she said.

“Cash tips.

I keep it in an envelope in the kitchen cabinet because David always says he won’t touch it if it’s labeled.”

“And he touched it.”

She looked away.

Her rent was due at nine that morning.

The landlord had already given her notice.

Not an official court paper yet, but close enough to feel like a hand around her throat.

She had been counting tips for three weeks, folding bills flat, writing the total on the outside of a white envelope in blue pen.

David had the envelope.

That was why he came.

Not love.

Not jealousy.

Leverage.

Roman’s face changed so subtly Norah almost missed it.

His amusement disappeared entirely, leaving something colder but clearer.

“How much?”

“No.”

“I asked a number, not permission.”

“And I’m not giving either.”

The room held its breath again, but this silence felt different from the first one.

Norah was still afraid.

Only now, fear had company.

Anger.

She was angry at David for stealing what she had earned.

Angry at herself for defending him in small ways for so long that the big ways had started to feel inevitable.

Angry that the night everyone would remember might not be the night she lost a job for calling Roman Gallagher baby, but the night David dragged the rest of her life through the club’s back door.

Roman tapped one finger against the ledger.

“You misunderstand me,” he said.

“I am not offering charity.”

“I didn’t ask for any.”

“No.

You asked him to leave.

He refused.

Now he is disrupting my business while holding something that belongs to my employee.”

My employee.

The words were possessive, but not intimate.

Not tender.

A legal line drawn on dark wood.

Norah lifted her chin.

“I’m a server, not family.”

“You are on my floor tonight.”

Before she could answer, a crash sounded from somewhere beyond the suite.

Not inside the lounge, but close enough to make every guard move at once.

Glass breaking.

A man shouting.

Another voice snapping an order.

Norah’s phone buzzed again.

A photo came through.

Her white envelope sat in David’s hand, the blue ink visible across the front: RENT – DO NOT TOUCH.

Under the photo, he had typed one sentence.

Come outside alone or I tear it up.

Norah stopped breathing.

Roman saw her face and held out his hand.

This time she did not give him the phone.

She turned the screen around.

He read it once.

The lounge seemed to cool.

“Eli,” Roman said, still looking at the message, “bring him to the service hall.”

Norah stepped forward.

“No.”

Roman’s eyes lifted.

“No,” she repeated, stronger.

“Not like that.

If you drag him in here with your men, he’ll make himself the victim and me