Page 6 of Veil of Secrets

I laugh again, but this time it’s quieter. Tired.

“I don’t take sides anymore,” I say.

He nods once. “Fair.”

We stand there, just breathing. Rain still patters down, soft and steady. My shirt sticks to my back now. I don’t care.

He finally breaks the moment.

“If you change your mind,” he says, pulling something from his back pocket.

A card. Plain. White. Just a number.

He holds it out.

I take it, mostly so he’ll leave.

He turns without another word and walks away, back into the dark.

I look down at the card.

A number and a name.

Nico Drago.

I don’t pocket it. I don’t throw it away either.

I press my back to the wall again and light another cigarette with hands that aren’t quite steady.

Men like him always come with promises. Promises turn to cages. I’ve been in enough of those.

I barely get two drags into my second cigarette before I hear the shuffle.

It’s not Nico this time. It’s heavier, sloppier. The wet drag of soles on concrete. I flick the ash and don’t move. My body tightens—not out of panic, just habit.

A shape stumbles into the alley from the side near the dumpsters. Tall, broad, belly-first. One of the drunk assholes from earlier. His shirt’s stained, his eyes glassy. His mouth already working around spit and venom.

He sees me and grins with the kind of confidence only cheap whiskey can buy.

“Hey!” he slurs. “Slut!”

I straighten.

“You think you’re too good to dance for me?”

I don’t answer. I don’t feed it.

He lurches forward, close enough that I can smell what’s fermenting in his stomach. One hand reaches out, fingers swiping at my arm.

Contact.

Wrong move.

I twist.

My elbow drives back hard and clean into his face. Bone cracks under it—probably the nose, maybe the cheek. He screams, hand flying to his mouth. Blood leaks between his fingers.

“Touch me again,” I say, voice flat, “and you’ll find your teeth on the ground.”

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