The older man’s last words stayed with Clara all the way from the SUV to the lit doorway.

Which truth you’re brave enough to tell.

She did not feel brave.

She felt wet, nauseated, and certain that every breath was borrowing pain from the next one.

The towel against her mouth had turned red at the fold.

Her hair stuck to her neck in cold ropes.

When the door opened under the iron awning, she smelled polished stone, cigar smoke, and rain trapped in wool coats.

Two guards stood just inside the private entrance.

Neither of them looked surprised to see a beaten woman being helped from the back of a luxury SUV.

That frightened Clara almost as much as Ricky’s boot had.

Here, disaster arrived quietly, and people made room for it.

The older man offered his arm.

She almost refused.

Then her right knee buckled, and pride became less useful than standing.

She took his sleeve with two fingers and let him guide her through a narrow service hall into a room that looked nothing like the club below it.

There was no music.

No sticky floor.

No drunk men shouting over bass.

The office was paneled in dark wood, with lamps low enough to make the corners private.

Rain traced the windows in silver lines.

On a long table near the center of the room lay a stack of register slips, a black money clip, and three small paper bands used to wrap cash.

Damian Russo stood beside the table with his coat removed and his shirt cuffs rolled once at the wrists.

He looked at Clara’s face for a brief, clinical moment.

“Sit.”

A guard pulled out a chair.

Clara lowered herself into it slowly.

The movement tore a whimper from her, and she hated herself for making the sound.

Damian did not react.

He turned to the older man.

“Vincent?”

The older man placed the black ledger on the table.

“She admits to forty dollars taken three days ago.

Says it went to an electric bill.”

Clara waited for Damian’s expression to change.

It did not.

“Is that true?” he asked her.

Her tongue felt too large for her mouth.

“Yes.”

“Why did you take it from the register?”

She stared at the register slips.

“Because the drawer was left open after close.

Because my power was getting shut off.

Because I was stupid.”

“That last part is not an explanation.”

Clara flinched, but she kept her eyes on the table.

“It’s the only one I have.”

Damian leaned back against the edge of the desk.

He was not a large man in the way Ricky was large.

Ricky used weight.

Damian used stillness.

The room seemed to arrange itself around his pauses.

“You know what happens to people who steal from me.”

“I thought I did,” Clara said before she could stop herself.

Vincent’s gaze lifted.

Damian’s mouth did not smile.

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know why I’m alive.”

That answer seemed to interest him more than her apology.

He picked up the top register slip and held it under the lamp.

“The drawer was short four hundred dollars tonight,” he said.

“You were not assigned to the register tonight.”

“I clean after the bartenders leave.”

“Do you count cash?”

“No.”

“Do you