Chapter 1: Punch You Right Now, Dude
The bass thrummed through the soles of Roxy's heels like a second heartbeat, some deep, filthy pulse that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the sheer insanity of where she was standing.
Velvet ropes. Actual fucking velvet ropes.
She'd seen them in movies, sure. But here they were, thick and crimson and soft-looking enough to make a person want to run their fingers along the fabric, except Roxy had a feeling that touching anything in this place without permission would get her hand broken in at least three places.
"You're doing that thing," Bree murmured beside her, close enough that her breath ghosted warm against Roxy's ear.
"What thing?"
"That thing where your face scrunches up like you just bit into a lemon and you're trying to decide whether to spit it out or swallow it."
Roxy snorted, reaching for the glass of champagne she'd been nursing for the past twenty minutes. The bubbles had gone flat ages ago, but she kept holding it anyway, mostly because it gave her hands something to do that wasn't strangling her best friend.
"I'm not scrunching."
"You're scrunching."
"I don't scrunch."
Bree's laugh was low and easy, the kind of laugh that made people turn their heads and wonder what they were missing. She had that effect on people. Always had. It was part of what made her so goddamn infuriating and so goddamn lovable at the same time.
"You absolutely scrunch. It's adorable. You look like an angry little gremlin who just discovered someone moved their cheese."
"I will throw this champagne in your face."
"Waste of good champagne."
"It's not good. It's flat and it tastes like disappointment."
Bree grinned, and for a moment, Roxy almost forgot to be pissed at her.
Almost.
The VIP lounge sprawled around them like something out of a fever dream, all dark wood and deeper shadows, chandeliers dripping crystals that caught the light and scattered it into jagged pieces across the ceiling. The windows were floor-to-ceiling, looking out over a vineyard that stretched into darkness, moonlit rows of vines that seemed to go on forever. The whole place smelled like money and danger and expensive cigars, and Roxy had been fighting the urge to bolt since the moment they'd walked through the door.
Three hours. Three hours of smiling at men with dead eyes and women with plastic smiles, three hours of pretending she belonged in a world where a single bottle of whiskey probably cost more than her rent, three hours of watching Bree charm her way through conversations with people who looked like they could have you disappeared with a snap of their fingers.
And now this.
Roxy set the champagne glass down on the mahogany bar with a little more force than necessary. The bartender—some guy in a suit that probably cost as much as her car—didn't even blink. Just slid another glass toward someone else, his hands moving with the kind of practiced efficiency that suggested he'd seen worse than a pissed-off girl in a black lace dress.
"We need to talk," Roxy said, her voice low enough that it wouldn't carry, sharp enough that Bree couldn't pretend not to hear.
"Can it wait? I was just about to—"
"No."
Bree's smile flickered, just for a second, before snapping back into place. She turned, leaning against the bar with an ease that Roxy envied, her body angled toward Roxy like they were just two friends having a casual chat, nothing to see here, move along.
Except Roxy wasn't in the mood for casual.
"Bree." She kept her voice steady, controlled, the way she'd learned to do when dealing with difficult customers at the bar where she worked, the way she'd learned to do when her mother was on one of her tears, the way she'd learned to do when everything inside her was screaming and she needed to look like she had it all together. "I saw you."
" Saw me what?"
"Don't."
The word came out harder than she meant it to, and for a moment, something flashed in Bree's eyes—something that looked almost like guilt, almost like fear, before it smoothed over into that same easy confidence she wore like armor.
Roxy had known Bree for six years. Six years of late-night ramen and bad movies, six years of holding each other's hair back after too many shots, six years of knowing each other's secrets and fears and the exact words that would hurt the most if they ever wanted to use them. She knew when Bree was lying. She knew when Bree was hiding something. And right now, every instinct she had was screaming that something was very, very wrong.
"The thing," Roxy said, her voice dropping even lower, barely a whisper now. "The thing you slipped into your clutch when you thought I wasn't looking. What was it?"
Bree's hand twitched, just slightly, toward the small black purse dangling from her wrist. It was the kind of motion most people wouldn't notice, but Roxy noticed everything when it came to Bree. Always had. Probably always would.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Bullshit."
"Roxy—"
"No. No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to drag me to a—to a mafia boss's party—"
"Alleged mafia boss."
"—and then lie to my face when I catch you stealing shit right under his nose."
Bree's jaw tightened. "Keep your voice down."
"Why? Because someone might hear? Because there might be consequences? Because the guy whose house we're standing in—the guy whose boyfriend—your boyfriend—works security for—might actually notice that something's missing?"
The words hung in the air between them, sharp and awful and true.
Because that was the thing, wasn't it? That was the part that made this whole situation so insane, so completely and utterly fucked. Bree's boyfriend. Marco. Tall, dark, quiet Marco with his watchful eyes and his careful hands and his job that involved keeping people safe from other people who might want to hurt them—or, depending on the day, doing the hurting himself.
Marco worked for Damien Moretti. Had worked for him for years, ever since he was a teenager, ever since Moretti had pulled him out of some bad situation and given him a purpose and a paycheck and a loyalty that ran bone-deep. Marco didn't talk about his work much. But Roxy wasn't stupid. She knew what it meant when someone worked security for a man whose name made people's voices drop and their eyes shift.
And Bree knew it too. Better than anyone.
So what the hell was she doing stealing from him?
"I didn't steal anything," Bree said, but her voice had lost some of its confidence, that easy charm cracking at the edges.
"I saw you."
"You saw me put something in my purse. That's not the same thing."
"What was it?"
"Nothing."
"Bree."
" Nothing ."
"You're lying."
"I'm not—"
"You're lying to me." Roxy's voice cracked, just a little, just enough to betray the fear underneath the anger. "You're standing here, in the middle of this—this place, surrounded by armed men and dangerous people and you're lyings to me, and I don't understand why."
Something shifted in Bree's expression. A crack in the armor. A moment of something that looked almost like shame.
"Roxy." Her voice was softer now, almost pleading. "It's not what you think."
"Then what is it?"
"I can't—"
"Can't what? Can't tell me? Can't trust me? After everything—"
"It's not about trust."
"Then what the hell is it about?"
Bree opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. For the first time since Roxy had known her, Bree looked lost. Looked scared. Looked like she was standing on the edge of something and wasn't sure if she should jump or run.
"I made a deal," she said finally, the words coming out slow and reluctant, like she was pulling them out of somewhere deep and painful.
A deal.
The word settled into Roxy's stomach like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward, distorting everything.
"A deal," Roxy repeated. "With who?"
"It's not—"
"With who, Bree?"
"Just let me—"
"No. No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to bring me to a mafia party and tell me you made a deal and then act like it's nothing. What kind of deal? With who? What did you take, and why?"
Bree's eyes darted to the left, to the right, scanning the room like she was checking for eavesdroppers, like she was making sure no one was listening.
"There are people here," she whispered. "People connected to—to things I can't talk about. Things Marco told me in confidence. And I—"
"You used them."
The voice came from behind them, cold as ice and smooth as glass, and both women went still.
Roxy had heard the phrase "blood ran cold" before. She'd always thought it was overdramatic, the kind of thing you read in paperback thrillers or heard in bad movies. She'd never actually believed it could happen, that your body could have that kind of physical reaction to fear.
She believed it now.
The man standing behind them—the man who had appeared out of the shadows without a sound, without a warning, without so much as a footstep to betray his approach—was not the kind of person who needed to raise his voice to command attention. He just had it. Naturally. Effortlessly. The way the sun had light. The way fire had heat.
Give a man like that a room full of armed security and a reputation that preceded him like a storm front, and you had something that made a person forget how to breathe.
Damien Moretti was tall—taller than Roxy had expected—with dark hair slicked back from a face that could have been carved from marble, all sharp angles and hard lines. His eyes were the kind of blue that didn't seem real, that seemed like the color had been stolen from somewhere colder, somewhere deeper, somewhere that didn't belong to anything human.
He was wearing a suit that probably cost more than most people's rent, and he wore it like a second skin, like it was just another layer of armor over the muscle and bone beneath. His hands were in his pockets, casual, relaxed, and somehow that made it worse—the casualness, the ease, the way he stood there like he had all the time in the world and nothing to fear from anyone in it.
When he looked at Bree, Roxy felt her friend shudder beside her.
When he looked at Bree, Roxy felt something cold and sharp settle into her own chest, something that whispered danger, danger, danger .
"What did you take?" Moretti asked. His voice was flat. No emotion. No inflection. Just words, and the weight they carried.
Bree's breath caught. Her hand tightened on her clutch—that tiny black purse that held whatever secrets she'd been so desperate to hide.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Even as she said it, Roxy could hear the lie. Could hear the fear underneath it, thin and reedy, cracking at the edges. Bree was good at lying. She'd always been good at lying. But this—this was different. Lying was a survival skill, a way to move through the world without getting hurt. Lying to a man like Damien Moretti wasn't smart, and it wasn't brave, and it wasn't going to work.
Moretti's eyes never left Bree's face.
He smiled—or, at least, his mouth curved upward at one corner, a movement so small and cold it could barely be called that. It didn't reach his eyes. He waited, his silence saying more than any threat could.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Bree repeated, but her voice wavered this time, slipped just a little, and Roxy watched the man's eyes narrow by a fraction of an inch.
The air in the room changed.
It was subtle at first—a shift in pressure, a change in the way the light seemed to fall, a prickle at the back of Roxy's neck that told her to run, run, run, but she couldn't, she couldn't, because there were men all around them now, emerging from the shadows like they'd been there all along, waiting for some signal she hadn't seen, and their eyes were cold and flat and their hands rested on weapons she was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to be able to see.
Bree didn't move. Roxy didn't breathe.
"You have something that doesn't belong to you," Moretti said, and his voice was the same—flat and level and utterly, completely emotionless. "I'm going to give you exactly five seconds to give it back before I stop being polite."
Bree's throat worked. Swallowed. Worked again.
"I don't—"
"One."
"Please, I—"
"Two."
"You don't understand—"
"Three."
Bree's eyes darted to Roxy, wide and desperate, and Roxy saw something she'd never seen before—something she'd never wanted to see—real fear, real panic, the kind of thing that stripped away all the charm and confidence Bree wrapped around herself like a shield.
"Four."
Roxy didn't think. She didn't stop to consider the consequences, didn't pause to weigh her options, didn't take even a second to realize how monumentally stupid what she was about to do really was.
She just moved.
Her hand curled into a fist at her side—instinct, pure and simple, some ancient part of her brain responding to threat with the only tool it had ever known—and she stepped forward, putting herself between Bree and the man who looked like he could snap both their necks without breaking a sweat.
"I could punch you right now, dude," she said.
The words come out sharp and angry and defensive, a laugh of disbelief underlining the sheer stupidity of everything that's happening. And as they land, the whole room goes quiet. The kind of quiet that's not just about sound but about pressure, about weight, about the sudden, awful realization that you've done something very, very wrong.
Every armed man in the room turns to look at her.
Roxy feels the weight of their eyes like a physical thing. She sees their hands shift toward their weapons, their shoulders rolling back with the instinct of men who've been trained to eliminate threats before they can fully form. Bodies coiling with potential violence. The moment stretches.
But Damien Moretti doesn't move.
He doesn't flinch, doesn't blink, doesn't so much as twitch. He just stands there, staring at her like she's a puzzle he hasn't quite figured out yet, a problem he hasn't decided how to solve.
And somewhere in the depths of those cold blue eyes, Roxy thinks she sees something flicker.
Something almost like interest.
The room waits.
The room waits.
Roxy's fist stays curled at her side, knuckles white, blood roaring in her ears so loud she can barely hear herself think. Every eye in the place is on her—hard men with harder faces, hands hovering near holsters, shoulders squared like they're bracing for a fight. She can feel the weight of their attention like a physical thing, pressing down on her chest, making it hard to breathe.
But she doesn't back down.
She's never been good at backing down.
Damien Moretti tilts his head, just slightly, a predator assessing prey. His eyes—those cold, impossible blue eyes—trace over her face like he's reading something written there, something she doesn't remember putting on display. The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost.
"You've got fire," he says. His voice is still flat, still empty, but there's something underneath it now. Something that sounds almost like amusement. "I'll give you that."
Roxy's jaw tightens. "I've got a lot of things. Doesn't mean I'm looking to share."
The silence stretches. One second. Two. Roxy can feel sweat prickling at the back of her neck, can feel her heart hammering against her ribs like it's trying to break free, can feel every nerve in her body screaming at her to run, to grab Bree and get the hell out of this place before something terrible happens.
But she can't run. Not yet. Not until she knows what Bree did.
She turns her head, just enough to look at her best friend. Bree's face is pale under the dim lights, her eyes wide and wet, her hand still clutching that tiny black purse like it's the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.
"Bree," Roxy says. Her voice comes out rough. Tired. "What did you do?"
Bree shakes her head. Small, desperate movements. "Roxy, I can explain—"
"Then explain."
"I—"
" Explain ."
The word cracks through the air like a whip, and Bree flinches like she's been struck. For a long moment, she doesn't say anything. Just stands there, trembling, her lips parted like she's trying to find words that won't come.
And then Damien Moretti speaks again.
"I'm still waiting."
His voice hasn't changed. Still flat. Still cold. But there's something in the way he says it—something patient and terrible—that makes Roxy's blood run even colder than it already was.
She looks at him. At Bree. At the armed men surrounding them like wolves circling wounded prey.
And something inside her snaps.
"God dammit, Bree!" The words tear out of her throat, raw and furious, and she's moving before she can think, before she can stop herself, her hand shooting out to grab Bree's wrist, to pry that clutch from her fingers, to end this before it goes any further. "I fucking told you! Don't fucking steal shit with me! I told you that over and over again!"
Bree gasps, tries to pull away, but Roxy's grip is iron. She wrenches the purse from Bree's hand—feels the weight of it, the wrongness of it, something heavy and solid inside that doesn't belong—and turns to Damien Moretti.
She holds it out to him.
He takes it. Doesn't look inside. Doesn't need to. Just closes his fingers around the black fabric and tucks it into his jacket pocket like it's nothing, like it's just another piece of business he's handled tonight.
Roxy turns back to Bree.
"You can fucking apologize," she says, and her voice is shaking now, shaking with rage, with hurt, with something that feels a lot like betrayal. "I don't even know this man, and I barely know Marcus—"
"Marco."
"I don't give a shit what his name is!" Roxy's voice rises, cracks, splinters. "What the hell, Bree? You know I never talk about my dad, or why I hate stealing so much, so let me fill you in."
She steps closer. Bree steps back. The armed men watch. Damien Moretti watches. The whole world seems to hold its breath.
"You know why I don't like people that steal?" Roxy's voice drops, goes quiet, goes dangerous. "Because my dad used to make me execute those people. At the farm. People who stole from us. People who took things that weren't theirs."
Bree's face goes white. Whiter than before. Ghost-white. Corpse-white.
"And actually, you want me to fucking be honest?" Roxy laughs—a broken, bitter sound that doesn't belong in a place like this. "I executed people for far less."
The words land like bombs. Bree's mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Nothing comes out.
Roxy doesn't wait.
Her hand moves before she can think, before she can stop it, before she can do anything but feel the impact of her palm connecting with Bree's skull. Not a slap. A crack. A hard, sharp blow that sends Bree stumbling sideways, gasping, one hand flying to her head.
And then Roxy turns.
She walks.
She doesn't look back. Doesn't look at Bree, crumpled and crying. Doesn't look at the armed men, still watching, still waiting. Doesn't look at Damien Moretti, who's standing there with his hands in his pockets and that same flat, unreadable expression on his face.
She just walks.
Through the VIP lounge. Past the velvet ropes. Through the grand hall with its chandeliers and its marble floors and its portraits of dead men who probably did worse things than anything that happened tonight. Out the front door. Into the night air.
It hits her like a wall.
Cold. Clean. Real.
Roxy stumbles down the front steps, her heels catching on the stone, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She doesn't know where she's going. Doesn't care. Just needs to get away, get far away, get somewhere she can breathe without feeling like she's drowning.
The driveway stretches out before her, dark and long and lined with cars that cost more than she'll make in her lifetime. Beyond it, the gate. Beyond that, the road. Beyond that, the rest of the world, the normal world, the world where people didn't steal from mafia bosses and get threatened with death and have best friends who lied to their faces.
She makes it halfway down the drive before her legs give out.
Not literally. She doesn't collapse. But she slows, stops, stands there in the middle of the gravel like a statue, her chest heaving, her hands shaking, her whole body trembling with adrenaline and rage and something that feels a lot like grief.
She needs a cigarette.
She hasn't smoked in three years. Quit cold turkey after her mother died, after she realized she was using nicotine to fill a hole that nothing could fill. But right now, standing in the dark outside a mafia boss's estate with her best friend's betrayal still burning in her chest, she wants nothing more than to light up and inhale until her lungs turn black.
There's a man by the gate. Security, probably. Standing there with his arms crossed and his eyes forward, looking like he's been carved from the same stone as the walls behind him.
Roxy walks up to him.
"Hey," she says. Her voice comes out rough, scraped raw. "You got a cigarette?"
The man looks at her. Blinks. For a moment, she thinks he's going to tell her to get lost, to go back inside, to stop bothering him while he's doing his job. But something in her face must tell him she's not in the mood for bullshit, because he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a pack.
"Thanks," she mutters, taking one.
He hands her a lighter. She cups her hand around the flame, breathes in, feels the smoke hit her lungs like a punch to the chest.
It hurts. It hurts so good.
She takes another drag. Then another. The cigarette burns down between her fingers, and she watches the ember glow in the darkness, thinks about all the things she's done tonight, all the things she's said, all the bridges she's probably burned.
Bree.
God, Bree.
Six years of friendship. Six years of secrets and laughter and bad decisions. Six years of thinking she knew someone, really knew them, only to find out tonight that she didn't know them at all.
What did Bree take? Why did she take it? What kind of deal did she make, and with who, and why didn't she trust Roxy enough to tell her?
The questions spin through her head like debris in a hurricane, and Roxy doesn't have answers for any of them. She just stands there, smoking, drinking in the cold night air like it's the first breath she's taken in hours.
She's drunk. Not blackout drunk. Not falling-down drunk. But drunk enough that the world has gone soft at the edges, blurry and warm and distant, like she's watching everything through a pane of frosted glass. She finished that flat champagne and then some. She lost count after glass four. Somewhere along the way, she stopped caring.
Behind her, the estate looms like a shadow.
Somewhere inside, Bree is probably crying. Probably apologizing. Probably trying to explain herself to Damien Moretti, who might or might not decide to let her live. Somewhere inside, armed men are still watching, still waiting, still ready to do whatever their boss tells them to do.
And somewhere inside, Marco is probably finding out what his girlfriend did.
Roxy takes another drag of her cigarette and stares up at the sky. No stars. Just darkness. Just the glow of the moon filtered through clouds, cold and distant and utterly indifferent.
She thinks about her father. Thinks about the farm. Thinks about all the things she did back then, all the things she's tried so hard to forget, all the blood she's washed off her hands and all the screams she's buried in the back of her mind.
She executed people for far less.
The words echo in her head, and she wonders if Bree understood what she was saying. Wonders if anyone in that room understood. Wonders if she even understands herself, or if she's just been carrying around this weight so long that she's forgotten what it feels like to set it down.
The cigarette burns down to the filter.
Roxy drops it, grinds it under her heel, and lights another.
She's going to need more than one.