CHAPTER 4
Roxanne
The night didn’t descend all at once.
It seeped into me slowly—through music, through alcohol, through the parts of me that was tired of remembering. Tired of holding everything together. Of anticipating danger before it arrived.
Eight bars. Eight drinks. Each one different—whiskey that burned, cider that dulled the sting, gin that lifted me just enough that the weight I carried loosened its grip.
Different drinks. Different stories. Different versions of myself slipping loose between sips—the mother, the designer, the survivor—until all that remained was pulse, skin, breath, and noise.
Ritu kept laughing, kept refilling glasses, kept tugging me forward whenever I hesitated. And I let her.
For once, I didn’t want to be careful.
Marcello had kept his word. No hawks. No shadows glued to my back. But he was still Marcello. A message popped up on my phone when we reached the first bar. Nothing urgent. Nothing demanding. Just a quiet check-in reminding me someone, somewhere, was aware I’d arrived.
At the second bar, the bartender already knew my name. By the third, a familiar car idled across the street—not waiting for me, just… there.
Not protection or control. Just infrastructure.
A net stretched somewhere far below me.
The men who handled things like this never hovered. Never approached. Never let themselves become part of my night. They lived in edges. In reflections. In the space between noticing and imagining. And tonight, I didn’t look for them.
By the time we reached the club, the world had dulled around the edges.
My cheeks were warm and my laugh came easier than it had in weeks.
Ritu’s friends were already there—a small constellation of chaos waited just outside the club—laughing, glittering, already half-drunk, loud enough to feel like safety.
“Rox,” Ritu said, tugging me forward, “this is Amelia, Callum’s better half. And that disaster is Jonah.”
Jonah lifted a hand in solemn greeting. “I object to that label.”
“And you know him,” Ritu added, gesturing beside Amelia.
I smiled. “Hi, Callum. Missed you on site today.”
His shoulders stiffened a fraction before he relaxed, rubbing the back of his neck. “That one’s on me,” he said. “Got pulled into a meeting with the contractors.”
Amelia laughed, looping an arm through his. “Translation: I stole him.”
Callum gave me that crooked smile I’d seen a hundred times across scaffolding and blueprints, the reluctant grin of a man turning theory into structure.
He was our point of contact in Ireland—the architect coordinating with local contractors, translating my impossible requests into something the contractors could actually build.
Callum was tall, lean, and quietly intense, deliberate in the way he moved, like every gesture had been measured before release.
His jaw was sharp, nose pointed, brown hair cropped short on the sides and curling messily on top.
A small cross earring hung from his left ear, catching the light when he shifted.
“I love your work,” Amelia said, turning to me. “Our apartment is basically a shrine to brutalist lighting because of you.”
A tight coil loosened in my chest, flooding me with warmth. “That’s… flattering.”
She grinned. Amelia was all sparkle—sharp eyes, blunt bangs, the kind of confidence that took up space without apology. Her laughter spilled like champagne bubbles, sharp and unapologetic.
“I know you two argue like it’s a competitive sport on site,” she continued, “so I’m just hoping tonight doesn’t end in murder.”
Callum shrugged, a quick, crooked smile flashing across his face. “She likes impossible structural changes.”
“They’re not impossible,” I countered mildly. “They’re just inconvenient.”
Amelia leaned in, lowering her voice conspiratorially.
“That’s his defence mechanism, by the way. He snaps back when he’s intimidated.”
I glanced at Callum. “I don’t think he’s intimidated. I think I’ve made his life hell.”
“And I gave you hell back.” He met my eyes, surprisingly steady now. “You’ve made the structure better.”
I blinked, caught off guard.
“Well,” I said lightly. “That’s what makes work play. You need someone to challenge your authority every now and then.” I winked.
His smile deepened, almost reluctant. “Touché.”
“That’s enough,” Amelia cut in, pointing between us. “No work talk. Not tonight.” She shot Callum a look.
He immediately raised his hands in surrender.
Ritu looped her arm through Jonah’s as we headed inside. Jonah had the kind of careless charm—easy grin, boyish mischief, the type who could trip over his own feet and somehow make it look intentional.
The doors swung open, music rolling out to meet us. The bass thudded through the floor, through my ribs, until my heartbeat surrendered and followed its rhythm. Heat pressed in from every direction—bodies, breath, perfume, sweat. The air tasted like sin pretending to be celebration.
We ordered ourselves a round of shots before heading to the dance floor. The music pulsed as bodies pressed together, finding their own sync with others. We found a pocket of space near the centre of the floor. Music rolled through us like stormy weather.
I danced. Not to be seen or desired. But to feel present inside myself again—and for a few blessed minutes, I belonged only to the music.
My hips moved without thought, arms loose, head tipping back as light fractured everything into gold and shadow. I was just a body in motion, heat and rhythm. For once, I wasn’t a mother, a wife, a survivor—I was just a body in rhythm, a pulse in the storm.
The music swallowed the questions I’d been carrying for weeks. Therapy words. Breathing exercises. Grounding exercises that worked—until they didn’t. The careful way I monitored my own happiness, as though it was temporary.
The guilt of leaving the kids behind. The fear that even peace could vanish if I relaxed too much.
For months I had treated joy like glass, as it were fragile—something that needed protection. But here, under strobe lights and bass that rattled my bones, I didn’t have to guard anything.
Here, movement was enough.
Being alive was enough.
Callum hovered nearby at one point—present but never intrusive. Safe. Polite. Amelia spun with careless confidence, laughing until Callum caught her. Jonah attempted rhythm and failed gloriously. And Ritu shouted encouragement that helped no one.
I laughed. Really laughed. The sound surprised me.
Ritu leaned close, her eyes catching the lights. “Burgundy suits you,” she said.
I smiled, pulling her close as we hugged and danced. Jonah grabbed my hand and clumsily mashed together a twirl and a dramatic bow, his grin wide, his movements exaggerated like a parody of ballroom grace.
I laughed, breathless, letting him twirl me once, then pressed my palms to his chest and pushed him back toward Ritu. Their laughter folded around me, but I kept my own rhythm, unwilling to be anyone’s spectacle.
That was when the space behind me disappeared.
A hand settled consciously at my waist—steady, intentional, as if it already knew the shape of me. Every muscle locked. My ribs ached with the sudden catch of breath. His touch felt like a claim.
It wasn’t fear. Fear was loud and immediate. This was quieter. Deeper. The kind that lives in bone, not memory.
My body knew this kind of touch. Not the hand itself, but the way it pressed like it had always belonged there.
The certainty behind it. Recognition without context. Like hearing your name spoken by the wrong voice.
Like déjà vu without memory—a song half-remembered that still knew the shape of you.
His presence pressed close enough that my skin registered it before my mind could argue. His breath brushed the side of my neck—warm, intentional, like a secret pressed against my skin, speaking a language my mind had forgotten. Whatever it was, it lived in muscle and breath—not thought.
I stepped forward instantly, pulse skidding, heart pounding too fast for the rhythm of the room. I spun so fast I thought I heard my neck crack. But when I turned, there was no one close enough to accuse. Just bodies. Movement. Light and noise.
My nerves stayed lit long after the space emptied.
I told myself it was only the chaos of mixed drinks, the way gin and whiskey, colliding with noise and heat, conspiring to trick the body into believing ghosts. The way music and shadows could trick memory into seeing patterns where there were none.
I told myself some ghosts only lived where you invited them—when you were foolish enough to summon them.
Still, my hands shook as I slipped away toward the bar. My pulse was uneven, my smile forced.
“Shot,” I told the bartender, forcing steadiness into my voice.
The glass barely touched my fingers before Ritu slammed into my side.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “You don’t spiral without witnesses.”
Jonah appeared on my other side. “Group suffering builds character.”
We drank.
The burn slid down my throat, sharp and punishing and deserved. For a second, my lungs forgot how to breathe. Then heat bloomed outward—chest, stomach, spine—reckless and immediate.
It felt like permission. To stop thinking.
To stop remembering. To just be noise and movement and sensation.
Laughter spilled out of me too easily. I let the room spin just enough to make me careless—enough that the shadows felt closer than they should. Enough that I didn’t stop myself when the glass was refilled again.
Jonah dragged Ritu back to the dance floor, while I lingered back at the bar to drown the noise pounding in my head.For the first time since I arrived, I felt entirely unobserved.
I was halfway through another shot when a deep voice spoke behind me.
“You’ve had enough.”
The voice slid down my spine like someone dragging cold metal over bone. My shoulders locked, every nerve tightened like it was bracing.
I turned too quickly and laughed, because drunk-me laughed at authority. At audacity. At men who thought they could decide things for me.