Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Jagger
Something's wrong with me tonight.
Adena's at Cirque du Soleil with Valentina and a security detail I didn't pick, watching acrobats fly through the air while I'm stuck here watching a woman in a corset simulate taking off clothes she's barely wearing to begin with.
I've done this a hundred times. Sat in rooms like this, played the part, watched worse than this without flinching. It's the job—background noise, necessary camouflage to blend into Marquez's world.
But tonight every laugh feels forced. Every glance at the stage makes my stomach turn, like I'm seeing it for the first time—really seeing it: the women reduced to body parts, the men consuming them with their eyes like it's their right, the whole grotesque performance wrapped in expensive velvet and called entertainment.
Adena's words won't leave me alone. They've lodged somewhere behind my ribs, sharp and uncomfortable, making everything else feel wrong by comparison.
The performer reaches behind her back, does something with her hands that makes the corset loosen. The crowd hoots. Marquez grins and elbows me.
"Beautiful, no?" he says, loud enough to be heard over the music.
I raise my glass. "Incredible."
I'm choking on the lies. I need air, so I lean toward Marquez. "I know a guy. Want me to see what I can get?"
His eyes light up. He knows what I'm offering. "Go. Make it worth the trip."
Ortega barely glances at me, already absorbed in the show. I push through the back exit into the alley behind the theater.
The desert air hits me—dry, still warm despite the hour. The bass from inside is muffled out here, reduced to a distant thump that barely registers.
A loading dock sits dark and empty across from me. Overhead, the neon from the Strip bleeds into the sky, turning everything a sickly orange.
I lean against the brick wall, close my eyes, just breathe.
It's the Bible. I never should have bought it for her, never should have let her leave it in my apartment.
The words are burning holes in my brain: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
I walk away from the burlesque theater and head toward the 7-Eleven so I can make the call to Silas for Adena.
He needs to know Adena's about to make a big mistake.
I think as I walk along Fremont Street, past pawn shops with barred windows and tourists stumbling between casinos.
I've lied, I've taken, I've hurt people who never deserved it. And the truth is, I can't fix any of it. No matter how many good things I try to pile on top, the rot underneath remains.
If God isn't just real, but also holy—really holy—then I'm in trouble, because holiness doesn't bend the rules. Justice doesn't just look the other way.
The 7-Eleven sign glows three blocks ahead. I should be moving toward it, not away.
But there's a jeweler on the corner, and I detour there first. If it's custom to get a bride a gift, I should probably get Adena something.
The window display is all flash—gold chains tangled with rhinestone rings, everything catching the neon and throwing it back at the street. It's exactly what I'd expect: gaudy, expensive, designed to catch the eye of men with money and no taste.
Nothing that I’d want to give Adena. My feet angle, ready to cross the street, but my eyes snag on something ordinary amongst the glitter.
Among the gold chains and rhinestone-studded rings, there's a plain gold cross on black velvet.
I turn away. Walk three steps and stop. My feet won't go further.
I clench my fists, look back at the window, and can’t for the life of me understand why I start moving toward the door.
Adena
Valentina gasped and clapped through the first act of Cirque du Soleil, then spent the second half whispering about which after-parties were worth attending, ruining it entirely.
My head is still pounding from perfume, champagne, and the weight of smiling while she cataloged every reaction I had to everything on stage—filing it away, assessing, calculating.
All I want to do is scrub the whole night away and slip into bed so I can quietly pray.
The suite door opens so suddenly, I drop the cotton ball I’m using to swipe my makeup off.
When Jagger calls an overly loud goodnight and slams the door, I grit my teeth and try not to glare at his reflection in the ornate gold mirror when he appears, glitter and feathers tangled in his hair, reeking of smoke and whiskey.
His tailored jacket is unbuttoned, his collar undone, and there are several shades of lipstick on his cheek.
"Wholesome evening, I see," I say.
He ambles over to the shower and switches it on. For one hot minute I wonder if he’s drunk enough to forget himself.
But when the spray roars to life, filling the bathroom with white noise, he grabs his ear and tugs, letting me know it’s cover only.
"I got you something," he says. His voice is rough, like gravel scraped raw.
With his eyes on me as I swipe makeup off, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a velvet box.
I squint at the gold cross inside, then at him. What on earth was he thinking? This is not the kind of gift that he should be giving me.
“How did you get a chance to buy this? I thought you were at a show?”
His mouth twitches, but there’s no humor in it. “I walked out. Took me an hour to go back in again.”
That gets my attention. And not because he’s supposed to have called Silas. “You left Marquez and Ortega that long?”
He nods once. I turn fully then, facing him. “Why?”
Jagger’s gaze drops to the cross again. “Doesn’t matter. I wanted to talk to you before tomorrow.”
I put the cotton ball down. “Okay.”
He rubs the back of his neck and doesn’t look at me. “You said Jesus took what we couldn’t carry ourselves. How?”
My stomach flips. He's not asking about theology. Something happened tonight, and now he’s asking because he needs to know if there’s a way out—of the thing he's been carrying alone, of the version of himself that thinks strength means never setting anything down.
And he's asking me because I'm the only person he's let see him trying.
I take a breath. Pray without showing it. Lord, help me explain You to him.
“Okay, so, God isn’t a concept,” I say. “He’s Spirit—living, personal, real. He made us, which means He has the right to define what is good.”
He looks at the cross again, like it’s suddenly something sharp.
“And that’s what I meant when I said Jesus took the burden we can’t carry,” I continue. “God didn’t leave us to drown in the mess we made. He came down. He took on flesh—real humanity.”
Jagger’s throat works as he swallows. “And then He was executed.”
My voice steadies, because this is the center of it. “He chose to be. He took the punishment justice demands for sin—not His, ours.”
Jagger’s eyes flick to mine. “How does that even—”
“It’s called substitution,” I say. “He stood in our place. Like… if you stepped between someone and a bullet meant for them because you loved them. Only it wasn’t just pain. It was judgment—God’s righteous wrath against sin—poured out on Him.”
Jagger stares at me like he’s trying to decide if I’m insane or if I’m the only sober person in the hotel. “You really believe this happened,” he says.
“I do,” I say, no hesitation.
His gaze shifts—just for a second—to his reflection in the mirror. “So what,” he says, “I just… believe it, and everything’s fine?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It isn’t magic. It’s surrender. It’s choosing which master you serve—God or His enemy.”
“Surrender,” he repeats, like the word tastes wrong.
“You stop defending yourself,” I say. “You agree with God about your sin. You turn from it—repent. And you trust Jesus’s resurrection is God’s declaration that the payment was accepted.
Sin and death didn’t win.” I look down at the cross.
“Then you trust Him. And you go wherever He leads and you give up what he asks, no matter how hard it is.”
Jagger stares at the cross in the box as if it’s accusing him. “You’re saying, if I do this… I can’t take it back. I serve God and Him alone.”
The truth of that makes my pulse stutter. “Yes,” I say. “You can’t serve two masters.”
He nods once, like he’s accepting a blow.
A long silence stretches. The shower roars. The bathroom fills with steam. The suite outside might as well be another planet.
When he looks at me, there’s real fear in his eyes.
“Tell me what to say,” he whispers. “Because I don’t want to mess this up.”
My chest tightens. This is what it costs him—not the belief, the surrender.
“Just tell Him you know He’s real, that He’s God, and admit you’ve sinned against Him,” I say.
His eyes drop. His shoulders sag, like holding himself upright has finally become too heavy.
My throat tightens. He can't do this with me watching. Some prayers are too raw, too honest—they need to happen in the dark, alone.
I touch his arm and turn to leave, but he catches my wrist. "Thanks, Tiger," he says. "What I need to say... it's between me and Him."
Jagger
Head still pounding from the night before, I claw myself out of the tangle of sheets and leave Adena sleeping in the wreckage.
The Bible sits on the desk where she left it. I'm itching to open it again, to reread the words that cracked something open in me, but I don't. Can't risk it. Can't afford to look like I'm anything other than what I've always been.
So I shower instead. Hot water burns my skin, and I scrub like I can wash away the strip clubs, the whiskey, the women, the performance of it all.
The crushing weight that’s been growing over the last decade is gone—the accumulated pressure of every lie, every deal, every person I've hurt.
It was so familiar I stopped noticing it.
And now it's just... gone, replaced by something else, something that feels like standing in sunlight after a lifetime spent in the dark.
I step out of the shower, dry off, and wrap the towel around my waist, smearing my hand across the steamed mirror.