I can feel the bass in my bones as I weave between tables, balancing a tray of overpriced champagne flutes like I’ve done this a thousand times before… because I have. Two hours into my shift at Haus Modesto, and I’m already counting down until last call.
The dress Maya picked out for me tonight clings to every curve. It’s a black number that’s supposed to make me look sophisticated but mostly just makes me feel exposed. The heels are at least three inches too high, and my feet are already screaming in protest.
I get a lot of looks, but at what cost?
I’m working the VIP section tonight, which means bigger tips, but also bigger egos and wandering hands that think a hundred-dollar bottle service gives them the right to treat me like part of the entertainment.
I deliver champagne to table twelve, occupied by three investment bankers who’ve been here since happy hour, their ties loosened and inhibitions long gone. One of them grabs my wrist as I set down his glass, his grip sticky with sweat and entitlement. “What time do you get off, beautiful?”
I extract my wrist smoothly, keeping my smile plastered in place. “Sorry, I’ve got plans.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. We’re having a good time here.”
“I’m sure you are.” I step back, putting distance between us. “Can I get you gentlemen anything else?”
They wave me off, already distracted by whatever crude joke one of them is telling. I turn away, releasing a shaky breath. Three years of this job, and I still haven’t perfected the art of deflecting without completely killing the mood. The mood that pays my rent.
I’m scanning the room for my next table when something makes me pause. A shift in the atmosphere. Like the yellow cloudy moment before a storm breaks.
In the far corner, where the lighting dims to almost nothing, sits a table I hadn’t noticed before, occupied by four men in suits, but they’re not like the usual clientele. These aren’t tech bros trying to impress dates or real estate agents celebrating a sale. They sit with the kind of stillness that suggests violence is always an option, even when they’re drinking thousand-dollar scotch.
The one at the head of the table commands attention without trying. In a black suit and black tie, with black hair swept back from a face that could’ve been carved from marble, he holds my attention longer than is appropriate. He’s not laughing at his companions’ conversation or checking his phone or scanning the room for entertainment.
He’s watching me.
Heat crawls up my spine, and I force myself to look away. He’s just another wealthy asshole, who thinks his money makes him interesting. I’ve served plenty of them. Yet when I steal another glance, those gray eyes are still fixed on me with an intensity that makes my heart stutter and contradicts my dismissive assessment.
I grab an empty tray from the bar and head toward the restrooms, needing a moment to collect myself. The hallway back here is dimmer and quieter, a pocket of relative calm in the chaos of the club. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, trying to shake off the feeling of being watched.
“Sabrina.”
I know that voice before I turn around. Carter Williams, a local wannabe entrepreneur, thinks owning two food trucks makes him some kind of business mogul. He’s been coming to Haus Modesto for months, always sitting at the bar, always ordering the same whiskey sour, and always trying to convince whoever will listen that he’s about to “disrupt the mobile dining industry.”
Tonight, he’s had too much to drink. I can tell by the way he’s swaying slightly, his usually perfectly styled hair mussed and his shirt untucked.
“Hey, Carter.” I keep my voice light, professional. “Having a good night?”
“Would be better if you’d finally let me take you out.” He steps closer, crowding me against the wall. “Come on, babe. You’ve been playing hard to get for months. When are you gonna give a guy a chance?”
The alcohol on his breath makes me wince, but I maintain my smile. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not really dating anyone right now.”
“That’s not what I heard.” His hand comes up to rest against the wall beside my head. “Heard you’re just picky. Think you’re too good for a guy like me.”
“That’s not—”
“I’ve got money, Sabrina. Real money. Not like these tech assholes throwing daddy’s cash around. I built something from nothing.”
I try not to wrinkle my noise as his alcohol-laced breath blasts my face. “I know you did, and that’s really impressive, but—”
His other hand lands on my waist, and I freeze. This isn’t the first time a customer has crossed the line, but something about Carter’s desperation tonight feels different. Dangerous.
“Just one date,” he says insistently, tightening his fingers. “One night, and I promise you’ll see what you’ve been missing.”
“Carter, I need you to step back.” I put my hands against his chest, trying to create distance without escalating the situation. “You’re drunk, and you’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable?” His laugh is bitter. “You walk around here in that dress, serving drinks and smiling at every guy who looks at you, but I’m making you uncomfortable?”
“Please—”
His grip shifts to my wrist, and suddenly, I’m not playing nice anymore. I’m trapped, and he’s too close, and the hallway feels like it’s shrinking around us. “Let me go, Carter.”
“You don’t know what you want. You think you do, but you don’t. Someone like me could take care of you. You wouldn’t have to work in a place like this anymore, dressed like a slut.”
Before I can respond, shove him away, scream, or do any of the things racing through my mind, a shadow falls across us.
“You need to get away from what’s mine.”
The voice is quiet and controlled, with just the faintest hint of an accent. Russian, maybe. Carter’s head snaps up, and his grip on my wrist loosens as he takes in the man standing behind him.
It’s him. The man in black from the corner table. Up close, he’s even more imposing—easily six-four, with shoulders that strain against his expensive suit and eyes like winter storms. He doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look anything at all, which somehow makes him more terrifying than if he’d been shouting.
“What the hell—” Carter starts, but the words die in his throat when those gray eyes land on him.
“I said step away.” There’s no threat in the words. No raised voice or clenched fists. Just a simple statement delivered with the kind of quiet authority that suggests this man is used to being obeyed.
Carter releases my wrist like I’ve burned him, stumbling backward. “Look, man, this doesn’t concern you. We’re just chatting here.”
“No. You were leaving.”
It’s not a suggestion. Carter must hear it too, because he straightens his shirt and mutters something under his breath, probably a curse, though I can’t make it out. He shoots me one last look, wounded and resentful, before disappearing back into the main club.
I expect the stranger to follow suit, to return to his table now that the situation is handled. Instead, he steps closer, and I become acutely aware that I’ve simply traded one problem for another.
He touches the spot where Carter grabbed my wrist, curling his fingers around the same spot with a gentleness that surprises me. His touch is warm, calm, and completely different from Carter’s desperate grabbing. “Are you hurt?” he asks.
I should pull away as I thank him and walk back to work while pretending this never happened. Instead, I study his face, noting the sharp line of his jaw, the way his dark hair is perfectly styled despite the heated situation, and the small scar that cuts through his left eyebrow.
“I’m fine.” The words come out breathier than I intended. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t release my wrist. Instead, he traces his thumb across my pulse point, and I wonder if he can feel how fast my heart is beating.
“What’s mine,” I repeat, finding my voice. “That’s what you said to him. What’s mine.”
His mouth curves into something that’s not quite a smile. “Did I?”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“No?” He studies me with those unsettling gray eyes, like he’s reading something in my face that I don’t even know is there. “Interesting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he releases my wrist and steps back, and I immediately miss the warmth of his touch.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening,” he says, and then he’s gone, melting back into the crowd like he was never there at all.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, my wrist tingling where he touched it, trying to process what just happened. A stranger intervened when Carter got handsy. That part makes sense. Men like him, wealthy and powerful, probably consider the entire club their territory, but the way he looked at me, like he knew me. Like he’d been waiting for me… That was unsettling.
I shake my head and return to the main floor, grabbing my tray and diving back into the rhythm of work. Table fourteen needs another round, and table nine is ready for their check. These are normal, manageable things.
When I risk a glance toward the corner table, he’s still there and still watching me with that same intense focus that makes my skin feel too tight and my breath catch in my throat.
I deliver drinks and clear tables and smile at customers, but I’m hyperaware of his presence. Every time I move through his line of sight, I feel his attention like a physical touch. It should make me uncomfortable and want to hide in the back until his group leaves.
Instead, it makes me want to walk over there and demand to know what game he’s playing.
When Maya calls last call, I’m both relieved and disappointed. The stranger and his companions settle their tab—a number that makes my eyes widen when I catch a glimpse of the receipt—and file toward the exit. I busy myself with closing duties, wiping down tables and stacking chairs, while trying unsuccessfully not to watch him leave.
At the door, he pauses and turns back. Our gazes meet across the room, and for a moment, everything else fades away. It’s just him and me and the strange electricity that’s been crackling between us all night.
Then he’s gone, and I’m left standing in the middle of an emptying nightclub, wondering if I imagined the whole thing.
“Earth to Sabrina.” Jessie appears at my elbow, her own closing duties finished. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just tired,” I lie, stacking the last of the chairs onto a table. “Long night.”
“Carter giving you trouble again?”
I consider telling her about the incident in the hallway, but something stops me. Maybe it’s the memory of warm fingers on my wrist, or the way the stranger looked at me like he could see straight through to my soul. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
She studies my face for a moment, clearly not buying it, but she doesn’t push. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’ll drive you home.”
As we walk toward the employee exit, I worry that tonight changed something. I’m concerned the man in black didn’t just intervene in a bad situation but set something in motion that I’m not prepared to handle. It’s a paranoid thought that I can’t dispel.
I tell myself I’m being dramatic. He was just another wealthy customer, who happened to be in the right place at the right time. The intensity I felt was just adrenaline from the confrontation with Carter, but as Jessie’s car pulls away from Haus Modesto, I look in the side mirror, half-expecting to see a black SUV following us into the night.
There’s nothing there except empty streets and the distant glow of city lights.
It still feels like he’s watching me somehow. The hollow ache in the bottom of my stomach tells me whatever this is, it’s far from over.
Back at the apartment, I kick off my heels with a groan of relief and collapse onto our secondhand couch. Jessie disappears into the kitchen, returning with two glasses of wine. It’s just cheap stuff from the corner store, but it does the job.
“Okay, spill,” she says, settling beside me and tucking her legs under her. “And don’t tell me it was just Carter being his usual creepy self. You’ve been weird all night.”
I take a sip of wine, buying myself time. How do I explain the way my skin felt electric every time his gaze found me? How do I describe the way my pulse jumped when he touched my wrist, or the strange certainty that he knows something about me that I don’t even know myself?
“There was this guy,” I finally say. “At table seven. He… intervened when Carter got handsy.”
“Good. It’s about time someone put that asshole in his place.” Jessie’s expression darkens. “What did he do?”
“Nothing violent. He just told him to back off.” I run my finger around the rim of my wine glass. “There was something about him and the way he looked at me, like he was…”
When I don’t finish, she prompts, “Like he was what?”
“Like he was waiting for me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Waiting for you? Sabrina, you’ve never seen this guy before in your life, right?”
“Right. That’s what makes it so strange.” I lean back against the couch cushions, closing my eyes. “Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe he was just being a decent human being.”
Even as I say it, I know instinctively that’s not the whole truth. Decent human beings don’t claim ownership of strangers. They don’t look at you like they can see every secret you’ve ever kept. They don’t make you want to follow them into the dark.
