Page 37 of Dance of Ruin

I don’t answer. I can’t.

He must take my silence as acknowledgement.

“Until tomorrow, then.”

Without another word, he turns and walks off stage, disappearing into the shadows he came from, trailing smoke and the singed smell of my soul.

I stand frozen for a long, drawn-out moment.

Then my legs give out and I collapse to the floor.

9

NAOMI

There wasa moment right as I reached the door at the address on Nico's card where I thought about running.

Spinning on my heel, sprinting down the stairs and out to the street, melting into the city until the sky fades to black and my legs give out. I pictured myself catching a bus to anywhere, getting off without a plan, changing my name, erasing every trace. Disappearing.

But the image that followed—one I couldn’t shake and that made my stomach twist—was Nico chasing me.

Not running. Just walking, calm and unhurried, already knowing where I’ll end up.

So instead, I opened the door and went up.

The ground floor was occupied by a Michelin-starred French restaurant, the kind where you need a connection just to get a reservation. The second floor was a tech startup…something to do with “AI-streamlined efficiency congruence”, whateverthatmeans.

But the third floor—the one I'm now on—is something else entirely. And it feels…old, like a time capsule to an earlier New York, especially contrasted against the elegant restaurant and the glass-and-neon tech bro haven below.

The door is solid wood, with a framed sign affixed to it that announces in very 80’s fontLickity Splits: Hottest Girls in the Big Apple!

I stare at it for a full thirty seconds.

A fucking strip club?

For a moment, I think this must be a joke.

Then I remember the look in Nico’s eyes last night. The quiet commanding tone in his voice.

He wasn’t joking.

I place a trembling palm on the door, my whole body coiled so tight I feel it might snap in half, and push it open.

The inside is all dark wood floors, vintage leather furniture, and lots of old bookshelves filled with…well…old books.

No neon. No strobes. No poles. No lap dances, thank God.

But there ishim.

Nico.

He’s sitting behind the desk at the far end of the large room, flanked by those high bookshelves on one side and a vintage bar cart on the other. The shades are drawn, giving the space a low, sultry, somewhat smokey-gauzy feel. Just a few dim, golden lights are on.

A cigarette dangles from his perfect lips, smoke curling lazily into the air. He doesn’t say anything when I enter. Doesn’t greet me. Just watches me with the same expression he had that night he caught me on the rooftop—cold, indecipherable, something I can’t quite place.

Detachment?

I step inside, and the door clicks softly shut behind me.

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