Chapter 2
DANTE
The club smells like sweat, perfume, and overpriced desperation.
I hate places like this. Too loud. Too many eyes, even if none of them are watching for the right things. The noise makes people stupid. They drink too much, talk too freely, forget the parts of themselves they should keep buried. Serrano thrives in it. I don’t.
I lean against the wall near the stairs and check the time again.
Seventeen minutes late.
I told him not to bring anyone else. Just a quick exchange, two names, one folder, and I’m out. He agreed. But Serrano’s never been able to resist showing off. So now I’m standing here, burning time, watching him play whatever game he’s playing with the girl in the black dress.
Pretty. Young. Too poised to be here by accident.
I don’t like it. I catch the bouncer’s eye and tilt my head. “Is he in the lounge?”
“Yeah. Been in there a while. Took someone with him.”
Of course he did.
I nod and head down the hallway. There’s a woman, a server probably, judging by her dress.
Hair half in her face, leaning against the wall like she’s bored out of her mind.
I glance at her once. Nothing suspicious.
Nothing memorable. I’ve already forgotten her face by the time I reach the second door and let myself in.
The lounge is empty.
My steps slow. Glasses on the table. One tipped over. Couch cushions damp. No one in sight.
I scan the room once, fast. No signs of struggle. No blood. But something feels off. I don’t like being surprised. I like being lied to even less.
A door clicks shut behind the far curtain. Private access. Staff hallway, maybe. I move toward it and press my palm flat to the wood. Cool. Quiet.
I don’t knock.
If Serrano’s trying to avoid me, I’ll make sure he regrets it. I open the door and step through.
The door swings shut behind me with a soft click. The hallway is darker here, narrower, quieter. No music. Just the sound of a struggle that stops too quickly the moment I turn the corner.
Serrano has a girl pinned between a low table and the wall. His hand is on her hip, his other gripping her wrist. Her dress is off one shoulder. Her hair’s a mess. She’s frozen the second she sees me.
He doesn’t notice me right away.
“Come on, baby, don’t be shy now. You came up here with me, didn’t you?” He leans in to kiss her, his voice all smooth poison.
I clear my throat.
The effect is immediate. Serrano jerks back like someone snapped a wire. The girl stumbles free, pulling her dress back up as she scrambles for her heels and clutch. Her hands shake.
I look at her, not Serrano. “What’s your name?”
Her eyes flick between us, like she’s still deciding whether this is going to get worse. “Julie,” she says, barely above a whisper.
I nod once. “You’re alright now, Julie. Go.”
She hesitates, then rushes out past me, clutching her things to her chest like armor.
I wait until the door shuts behind her before I turn back to Serrano.
He straightens his jacket with a dramatic sigh. “I would’ve come down eventually.”
I step forward, just enough to make the space between us feel smaller. “I don’t like waiting.”
Serrano rolls his eyes and moves to the corner cabinet, pouring himself another drink like I didn’t just catch him assaulting someone.
“She was a tease,” he mutters. “You know how it is. They come upstairs, they act like they’re into it, then they get shy.”
I say nothing.
He takes a long sip and finally looks at me over the rim of his glass. “You came for the file?”
“I came for what you owe me.”
“And you’ll get it,” he says. “Relax, Dante. It’s not like I was going to break the girl.”
I hold his gaze for a long second. “People like you always think you’re in control until you’re not.”
He smirks, but something behind his eyes twitches. Just enough for me to know he heard me.
I sit down, slow and calm, and rest my elbows on my knees. “Now,” I say. “Let’s talk.”
Serrano drains half his glass in one go and tries to pretend that little scene didn’t happen.
I give him nothing.
He picks up his drink again, but this time doesn’t sip. “You don’t waste time,” he says, settling into the armchair across from me.
“I don’t have it to waste.”
He huffs a laugh, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Alright. You want the shipment moved or just cleared?”
“Moved. Discreetly. No reroutes, no visibility. I want the original manifest gone, and the container reassigned before it hits the docks.”
He nods slowly, tapping his finger against the glass. “And the destination?”
I slide a folded slip of paper across the table.
He unfolds it, scans it once, then folds it again with a flick of his wrist. “That’s far.”
“Distance isn’t your problem. Delivery is.”
“Delivery takes leverage.”
“You already have it,” I say. “You’ve been sitting on it for three weeks.”
Serrano leans forward. “You don’t tell me how to move my product. You need to give me more time.”
“You have three days.”
He smirks, but it looks more like a wince. “You ask like you’ve got the muscle to enforce that.”
“I don’t ask.”
For a moment, we sit in silence, the weight of the deal settling between us. He swirls the liquid in his glass, thinking it over.
Finally, he nods once. “Fine. You’ll have your shipment. I’ll scrub the tags, change the route, and bury the records. But I’m not taking heat if something crawls out later.”
“You won’t.”
He pulls a slim folder from behind the bar and sets it on the table between us. “Everything you need. Including a number for the dockmaster.”
I pick it up, flip through the pages quickly. Coordinates, contacts, manifests. Everything we discussed.
We stand at the same time. He offers a hand. I don’t take it, just give him a quiet look and head for the door. Behind me, he mutters something under his breath I don’t care to hear.
The door clicks shut as I leave.
The hallway is quiet now. The air cooler.
Julie is gone.
Good. She shouldn’t have been here in the first place.
The club’s back door thuds shut behind me, and the noise drops like a stone.
Out here, the air is clearer, cooler. Still heavy with exhaust and hot pavement, but it beats the thick humidity inside. I walk down the narrow alley and step out onto the street, stopping at the curb, letting the city unfold in front of me like a problem I never asked to solve.
Chicago hums with that restless kind of energy I’ve never learned to like. Too loud. Too slick. Everything concrete and glass, always pretending to be something it’s not.
I light a cigarette and take one slow drag before Liam appears beside me, hands in the pockets of his coat, collar turned up, blond hair still a little damp from the shower he probably didn’t have time to take.
“You’re grumpier than usual,” he says, watching traffic with a grin.
“I don’t like this place.”
“You don’t like any place.”
He’s not wrong. Cities never sit right with me. They’re all noise and angles, full of people trying too hard to be invisible or impossible to ignore. New York is the only exception, the only place that has ever felt like home.
A van slows as it approaches the light. Plain, silver, unmarked. The window’s cracked halfway. The driver glances out once—just a quick look—and in that blink, I see her.
A girl.
Brown hair pulled back loosely. Hands on the wheel like she’s been driving for hours. Her eyes skim past me, calm, focused, like she’s trying not to be noticed. But something flickers across my chest when I catch that look. I swear I saw her inside the club.
Then the van turns the corner and disappears.
I’m still watching the taillights when Liam nudges my arm with the back of his hand. “I’m assuming these are wedding day jitters,” he says.
I blink, shake it off. “What?”
“Your mood. The edge. The brooding silence. Classic signs of a man about to commit.”
I turn my head slowly. “I’m not getting married.”
Liam just smirks. “Not yet. But remember, the wedding is less than four days away now. You’re practically a married man.”
I give him a look that usually ends conversations. He doesn’t take the hint.
“Maybe you just need a vacation,” he says. “Somewhere warm. With people who don’t wear winter as a personality.”
I don’t reply. He sighs like he expected that too.
We stand a little longer, both watching the quiet edge of the city breathe.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
“Sure. The storm cloud over your head says otherwise.”
I don’t answer.
He nudges me with his elbow. “You know, for a guy who’s about to marry the most beautiful girl in the world, you don’t look thrilled.”
I glance at him. “You’re talking like she’s marrying me because she wants to.”
That shuts him up.
The grin slips from his face, replaced by something more careful. He clears his throat, looks out at the street instead of at me.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says after a moment.
“No,” I say. “You didn’t.”
A bus rattles past. Headlights wash over our shoes and vanish down the block. Somewhere across the street, a drunk couple is laughing too loudly, staggering toward a rideshare with the confidence of people who think the night still belongs to them.
Liam shifts beside me, but he doesn’t say anything. Smart. I know he wants to. He never did like silence. That’s my little brother.
He lets the silence stretch, his breath curling in the cold, then glances over, trying for casual. “You bought a ring yet?”
“No,” I say, too quickly.
He lets it slide. Maybe he doesn’t care, or maybe he’s tired of fighting me over things I won’t say.
The truth is, there won’t be a ring. Not a real one.
Not the way people imagine. This marriage isn’t about love or hope or any of the things that keep people warm at night.
It’s an arrangement. A deal struck in back rooms. Something signed to bind two families, to seal wounds that never healed the right way. Some debts don’t get paid with money.
It’s a price, not a promise.
Liam shrugs, stuffing his hands deeper in his pockets. “She’ll expect one, you know. Even if she doesn’t want it.”
I watch a pair of headlights slide across the sidewalk, lost in the movement, not really seeing anything at all. “People expect a lot of things,” I say, quieter than before.
He doesn’t push it.
The wind picks up again, and somewhere far away, I hear church bells, dull and heavy, counting down the hours to a morning I never asked for.