“Ask better questions,” I say.
Someone laughs. Someone gasps. Someone yells my name again.
I keep walking.
Inside, Eclipse swallows me whole.
Bass shakes the floor through my boots. Lights sweep across the crowd, turning faces into masks and bodies into movement. The air smells like expensive tequila, hot skin, fog machine chemicals, and the ghost of every bad idea I have ever called fun. My ribs ache with every thump. My wrists burn under the cuffs Darling wrapped over my bandages, black leather with silver studs, pretty enough to lie.
I can do this.
Coño, I can do this.
The manager, Nico, meets us near the VIP hall, sweating through a silk shirt. “Lady, baby, we can cancel. Nobody will blame you.”
I look at him.
He lifts both hands. “Okay. Bad start.”
“Very.”
“I meant people are worried.”
“People are entertained.”
He winces.
Darling’s hand finds my back. “Greenroom first.”
“No.” I look toward the main floor. Phones are already turning. Whispers move like smoke. “Booth first.”
Nico blinks. “You want to go straight on?”
“I want them to remember what they paid for.”
Diablo says from behind us, “Security sweep is still running.”
I glance at Darling. “Does he always kill the buzz?”
“Yes,” she says. “We’re working on it.”
Diablo’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing.
Shady appears at the edge of the hall.
He has not come through the crowd. Road captain knows every back way, every service door, every dark route men take when they don’t want to be seen. He stops far enough away that nobody can say he cornered me.
My skin notices anyway.
“Lady,” he says.
Just my name.
Still enough to make my thighs remember his hands.
I hate him.
I want him.
