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"You've got ten seconds before I call him."
I freeze halfway through the back door of the Velvet Gear. Camelia's voice cuts through the alley noise like a blade.
"Call who?" I say, but I already know.
"The landlord. The one Milo owes three months to." She steps into the doorframe, backlit by the kitchen's red emergency strips. "He's been asking around. Says your brother's got expensive habits for a kid who can't make rent."
My hand tightens on the door handle. "Milo doesn't have habits. He has medical bills."
"Same difference to Marco." Camelia folds her arms. "He's coming by tomorrow. Cash or keys, Nora. That's what he said."
I let the door swing shut behind me and walk past her into the kitchen. The fryer's still hissing. Someone left a tray of garnishes out, wilting under the heat lamp.
"How much?" I ask.
"Forty-two hundred."
I laugh. It comes out sharp and wrong. "Great. I'll just pull that out of my tip jar."
"Or," Camelia says, "you could ask your mom's people."
"My mom's dead."
"You don't know that."
I spin around. "She's been gone for eight years. That's dead enough."
Camelia doesn't flinch. She never does. "Then maybe you should start acting like someone whose brother's about to get evicted. There's a private event tonight. Upstairs at the Meridian. High rollers, no cameras, cash bar."
"I don't work the Meridian."
"You do if you want forty-two hundred by tomorrow." She pulls a key card from her apron and sets it on the counter between us. "Service entrance. Second floor. They're running an auction in the penthouse suite. You pour drinks, you smile, you keep your mouth shut. They tip in hundreds."
I stare at the card. It's matte black, no logo. The kind of thing that opens doors you're not supposed to walk through.
"What kind of auction?" I ask.
"The kind where you don't ask questions."
I pick up the card. It's warm from her pocket.
"Wear black," Camelia says. "And for God's sake, don't steal anything."
---
The Meridian smells like old money and new leather. I slip through the service entrance at eleven-forty, wearing the only black dress I own that doesn't have a rip in it. The key card gets me past two locked doors and into a service corridor lined with mirrored panels. I can see myself in triplicate: dark hair pulled back, no jewelry, hands shaking just enough to notice.
I clench my fists and keep walking.
The corridor opens into a staging kitchen. Two other servers are already there, both in tailored black, both pretending I don't exist. I grab a tray from the rack and load it with champagne flutes. The bottles have labels I can't pronounce.
A man in a charcoal suit steps into the kitchen. He's got a radio earpiece and a face like a fist.
"You," he says, pointing at me. "Name."
"Nora."
"Last name."
"Vale."
He checks a tablet, scrolls, frowns. "You're not on the list."
"Camelia sent me. I'm covering for—"
"I don't care who sent you." He steps closer. "You walk in, you pour, you walk out. You don't talk to the guests. You don't look at the lots. You don't take pictures. You don't exist. Clear?"
"Crystal."
"Good." He waves me toward the double doors. "Penthouse suite. Keep the glasses full and your head down."
I pick up the tray and push through the doors.
The suite hits me like a wall of heat and smoke. Fifty people, maybe more, all in black tie and cold expressions. The air tastes like cigar ash and something sharper, something chemical. The lights are low, but the center of the room is bathed in white: a raised platform with a podium and a glass case.
Inside the case is a knife. Obsidian blade, bone handle, runes I don't recognize.
A woman's voice comes through the speakers, smooth and bored. "Lot seventeen. Reserve opens at two hundred thousand."
I stop walking.
Two hundred thousand. For a knife.
Someone snaps their fingers at me. I cross the room, offering champagne to a man who doesn't look at me, a woman who takes two glasses, a kid my age in a suit that costs more than my car. No one says thank you. No one says anything.
I circle the room twice, refilling glasses, catching fragments of conversation.
"—bloodline's confirmed, but the mark won't take—"
"—three families bidding, all of them desperate—"
"—Mercer's out, thank God. Last thing we need is him buying his way back in—"
Mercer. I know that name. My mom used to say it the way other people say cancer.
I drift toward the edge of the room, where the crowd thins out near the service doors. There's a side table stacked with auction paddles, each one tagged with a number. Next to the paddles is a lockbox. Steel, about the size of a shoebox, with a keypad lock.
I set my tray down and glance over my shoulder. Everyone's watching the podium. The woman's voice is climbing now, calling out bids.
"Three hundred. Three-fifty. Four hundred thousand to paddle seventy-two."
I kneel next to the lockbox and pull a bobby pin from my hair. My hands know what to do before my brain catches up. This is stupid. This is suicide.
But Milo's face is in my head, pale and tired, asking me if we're okay.
The lock clicks open.
Inside the box are stacks of cash, banded and labeled. I count six stacks, ten thousand each. I grab two and shove them into the inner pocket of my dress. My heart's trying to punch through my ribs.
"Looking for something?"
I slam the box shut and stand up fast. A man is leaning against the wall three feet away, arms folded, watching me with the kind of smile that makes my skin crawl.
He's older than me, maybe thirty, with silver rings on every finger and a scar that runs from his temple to his jaw.
"Just checking the lock," I say. "Someone said it was loose."
"Did they." He steps closer. "You know what happens to people who steal from this room?"
"I'm not stealing."
"Then open your dress."
I don't move.
He reaches for my shoulder, and I grab his wrist and twist. He grunts, surprised, and I shove him back into the wall. Hard.
"Don't touch me," I say.
He laughs. It's a wet, ugly sound. "You just signed your brother's death warrant."
My blood goes cold. "What did you say?"
"Milo Vale. Apartment 4C. Owes Marco Santis forty-two hundred and change." He tilts his head. "Funny how names get around."
I let go of his wrist and step back. The room is spinning.
"Here's the deal," he says, rubbing his arm. "You give me what's in your pocket, and I forget I saw you. Or I make a call, and your brother's evicted by morning. Maybe worse."
I want to hit him. I want to run. I do neither.
"Fine," I say, and reach into my pocket.
Then the lights go out.
Someone screams. Glass shatters. The emergency strips along the floor flicker on, casting everything in red.
I don't wait. I turn and run for the service doors, shouldering through the crowd. Hands grab at me. Someone shouts. I keep moving.
The corridor is empty, lit by the same red strips. I sprint toward the elevator bank, my heels skidding on the marble.
The service elevator is open. I throw myself inside and slam the button for the ground floor.
The doors start to close.
Then a hand catches the edge, and a man stumbles in.
He's tall, dark-haired, wearing a torn white shirt soaked through with blood. There's something black crawling up the side of his neck, thin lines like ink spreading under his skin.
He leans against the wall and looks at me with eyes the color of smoke.
"You're her," he says.
I press myself into the corner. "I don't know you."
"You're Liora's daughter."
My breath stops.
"How do you know my mother's name?"
He slides down the wall, leaving a streak of red. The black lines on his neck are pulsing now, moving like they're alive.
"Because," he says, "she's the reason I'm dying."