Nico stood beside me, close enough that his sleeve brushed my arm and far enough that the totals stayed under my hand.
“This is enough to prove the principal path,” he said.
I swallowed. “Say that in human.”
“It proves you can pay the real debt.”
“And the fake one?”
His jaw tightened. “That’s what Sal will try to use.”
I set the top sheet down and smoothed it once. “Then he can try with my receipts in his teeth.”
Shay walked over with her drawer bag. “Boss.”
I looked up.
She, Taryn, Dusty, and Mari had stopped near the pass. None of them asked the question out loud. They didn’t know the whole of it. They didn’t know sharks and sex and Sal’s voice on the phone. But they knew money pressure. They knew when a night mattered.
“We moved the emergency batch,” Shay said.
“And nobody stopped asking for the black-rim drink,” Taryn added.
Mari nodded. “The kitchen didn’t die.”
Dusty lifted the broom slightly. “The floor and I are negotiating peace.”
My throat tightened.
I picked up the deposit bag because paper didn’t make emotional faces at me. “Everybody go home before I become generous and pay overtime in feelings.”
Shay smiled. “Terrible currency.”
“It really is,” I said.
They left in pieces, the way closing staff always did, with tired jokes, squeaking shoes, and somebody forgetting sunglasses on the end of the bar. The side door locked behind Mari last.
The bar wasn’t quiet. The neon hummed. The cooler clicked. Outside, the boardwalk still held late footsteps, music two doors down, and the soft rush of people not knowing my whole life had just been counted in receipts.
My phone buzzed.
Nico looked at it before I touched it.
SAL TORRETTI:
Profitable night. Profitable asset. Packet or consequences.
A second message came in before either of us spoke.
SAL TORRETTI:
I’m in your service alley. Send Nico outside. Alone.
Cold moved over my skin.
Nico took the phone from the counter.
“No,” I said.
