Chapter 26
twenty-six
BILLIE
The bass at Pulse hits somewhere below my ribcage, this deep, tectonic thing that makes my teeth vibrate.
The whole club is a blur of dark walls and neon streaks— blues and purples cutting through manufactured fog— and the crowd is a single living organism, all sweat and movement and the kind of anonymity that makes you feel like you could be anyone.
Which is sort of the point tonight. We’re supposed to be anyone but ourselves.
I’m wearing something that glows under the black lights, and so is he, and we look like two radioactive people who wandered in from a different dimension.
But I can’t think about any of that because Rodrigo’s hand is on the small of my back.
His palm is warm and it sits right there at the base of my spine like it was always meant to be there— like my spine was built for it.
A kind of evolution even Darwin wouldn’t understand— this is less scientific and more poetry.
His other hand finds my waist, and I feel my entire body tilt toward him the way a plant leans toward light, which is embarrassing but also completely involuntary.
I’ve spent thirty-five years on this planet making myself smaller for men.
Smaller opinions, smaller appetites, smaller presence.
Standing in the back of rooms. Nodding when I should have been talking.
But right now, pressed against Rodrigo in a techno club— I don’t want to be small.
He can handle the best and the worst of me.
I have never wanted a man this much.
I want to say it out loud, to tell him, but I’m Billie Harper, so instead I just press my forehead against his collarbone and breathe him in.
The music shifts— something slower, still electronic but with this aching melody threaded through it— and Rodrigo pulls back. Not away. Just enough so he can look at me. The strobe light catches his face in intervals, and each flash is like a photograph I want to keep.
He leans in to whisper something in my ear.
“Billie,” he says, and his voice is low enough that I feel it more than hear it. “I?—”
My heart does a flutter that seems dangerous and unsound. For a second, I think he might tell me he loves me. Which is impossible, because we have not known each other long enough, and because we have promised to be friends and?—
I feel his breath against my neck–
And then the world goes black.
Not metaphorically. Actually, literally black— fabric over my face, something rough and heavy that smells like canvas and industrial cleaner and somebody’s really bad day.
A bag. Someone has put a bag over my head.
The most romantic moment of my life has been ruined by a fabric bag.
I try to scream, but the sound gets swallowed by the fabric and the bass and the chaos that erupts all at once.
Hands— not Rodrigo’s, absolutely not Rodrigo’s— grip my arms with the kind of force that suggests these hands have done this before and are very good at it.
I’m wrenched backward, away from the warmth of his chest, and the loss of contact is so sudden it feels like a physical wound.
Then, I hear a hitting sound, and suddenly, the bag is off my head.
Rodrigo is standing in front of me again, his fist clenched, breathing heavily: “Run, Billie!” he says.
It’s clear Rodrigo has tackled my assailant to give me time to get away.
But then a man behind him pushes him to the floor.
They move away from me, getting lost in the crowd— and I run toward him to try to help— but I’m grabbed again, and the bag is back, and I can’t see.
“Rodrigo!” I yell into the bag, which is about as useful as yelling into a pillow.
My feet scrape the ground as I’m dragged backward. The music gets louder for a moment— we must be passing a speaker— and then it dims. We’re moving away from the dance floor. A door opens. The temperature changes. The air gets cooler and smells like concrete and cigarettes.
I try to catalog what’s happening the way a smart person would— direction of travel, number of captors, possible exits— but mostly I’m thinking about the fact that I was two seconds away from hearing the end of that sentence.
Two seconds. I’ve waited my whole life for someone to look at me the way Rodrigo was looking at me, and the universe gave me a single moment before ripping it away.
This is what I get for technically cheating on Tyler. The universe saw Billie Harper on the verge of something beautiful and thought, absolutely not.
The hands shove me down into what feels like a chair.
The bag stays on. I sit in the dark and try to breathe and think, irrationally, unreasonably— about what Rodrigo was about to tell me.
I should be worried about the fact I’ve probably just been discovered by the Twin Ledger and am about to die...
but all I can think about is the feeling of Rodrigo’s breath on my neck.
* * *
The light, when the bag comes off, is fluorescent and merciless.
I blink against it, my eyes watering, and the room assembles itself in pieces— concrete walls, a metal table shoved against the far side, exposed pipes running along the ceiling.
Somewhere far away, the techno music still pulses, but it’s muffled now, reduced to a heartbeat behind layers of wall and door.
We’re in the guts of the club. The part the clientele never sees.
I try to move and discover that I can’t. My wrists are zip-tied to the arms of a metal chair, which seems like overkill for someone of my stature, but I suppose professionals are professionals.
Rodrigo is on my left. Also tied to a chair. There’s a bruise blooming along his jaw— purple and angry— and his eyes are calm on the surface but there’s a wildfire underneath. He catches my gaze and something in his face softens, just fractionally, just enough to communicate: Are you okay?
I nod. I am not okay. But I nod.
On my right, Alana sits in her own chair like it’s a throne.
Her wrists are bound the same as ours, but somehow she’s managed to cross her legs, and her posture is the posture of someone waiting for a latte, not someone who’s been kidnapped at a nightclub.
Her pink outfit still glows faintly under the fluorescent light.
Her eyelash extensions are, impossibly, still intact.
She looks mildly inconvenienced, the way you’d look if someone told you the restaurant lost your reservation.
“This is so rude,” she says, to no one in particular.
A door opens behind us, and footsteps approach— measured, deliberate. A man steps into view, circling around to face us, and I get my first look at the person who orchestrated this charming little kidnapping.
He’s in his forties, thin in a way that suggests discipline rather than deprivation.
His beard is— I want to say artistic, but really it’s the kind of facial hair that suggests someone who makes eccentric choices and stands by them.
There’s an intelligence in his eyes that’s almost clinical, like he’s already done the math on us and is waiting to see if we’ve arrived at the same answer.
“Alana,” he says, and it’s more of a confirmation than a greeting.
“Tamor!” Alana smiles brightly. “Love what you’ve done with the place. Very, like, serial killer chic.”
“You came to me for documents, I assume.” His tone says this is transactional and boring. “But the situation has changed.”
“Changed how?” Rodrigo’s voice is steady. Controlled.
Tamor doesn’t look at him. He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and produces a phone, holding the screen toward us. On it, I can see what looks like a dark web listing— grainy photos, text in multiple languages, and numbers. Big numbers.
“The Twin Ledger has raised the bounties,” Tamor says. “On all three of you. Effective as of—” he checks his watch with theatrical precision— “four hours ago.”
My stomach drops. Not a gentle descent. A free fall.
“How much?” Alana asks, and there’s a flicker of something sharp behind the bubbly facade.
Tamor tilts the phone. “You, Alana— two hundred thousand euros. The man— one hundred fifty thousand.” He pauses, and his gaze slides to me. “The very frightened woman. Four hundred thousand.”
The room goes very quiet. Even the distant techno seems to hold its breath.
I blink. “I’m sorry— me? I’m the highest bounty?”
“You,” Tamor confirms.
On my right, Alana’s composure cracks. Not in a scared way. In an offended way.
“Okay, wait.” She sits forward in her chair as much as the zip ties allow.
“Four hundred— are you kidding me? I’m the one who stole from them!
I, like, literally took their ring. I’ve been in this career field for years, and she’s—” Alana gestures toward me with her chin, since her hands are otherwise occupied.
“No offense, Billie, but you’ve been doing this for, like, a week. ”
“None taken?” I manage.
“This is so unfair. Like, what do I have to do to get some respect around here? I stole an actual ring from an arms dealer, and the corporate assistant gets double my bounty? This is—” She turns to Tamor. “This is sexism.”
“It is economics,” Tamor says, unmoved. He nods at me. “Rumor is she killed Mateo. She has destroyed one half of The Twin Ledger. You, Alana... stole some jewelry. Which Marco will certainly get back when he has you in his grasp.”
Alana lets out an angry huff, as if she’s about to ask to speak to a manager. “Okay, wow. Way to diminish my accomplishments, Tamor. And after all our years of friendship! Has anyone ever told you that you need therapy?”
“Regardless,” Tamor continues, his voice as flat as the concrete walls, “I cannot help you. The risk-to-reward ratio no longer favors my involvement. Every forger, fixer, and freelancer between here and Lisbon has seen these postings. Helping you is a suicide note.”