Chapter Six: The Morning After

FELIX POV:

I woke up slowly, no spinning room this time, no confusion about where my hands had been. Just a dull throb behind my eyes and the heavy stillness of a body that had actually rested for once.

Right. Hangover. The normal kind, no strange heat under my skin, no missing hours. Just whiskey and a headache with an honest explanation for once.

I lay there a few seconds, staring at a ceiling that felt unfamiliar and familiar at the same time, letting the pieces settle into place on their own. The sheets. That faint, clean smell clinging to the pillow.

I didn't need two heads to know I was back in Renato's apartment. Again.

I sat up carefully, bracing myself for some new ache to announce itself, the way my body had the first morning I woke up here. Nothing came. No fresh soreness, nothing new written into me overnight. Just the faint, healing traces from that first night, quieter now, fading into memory instead of pain.

Whatever last night had actually been, it hadn't been that.

Do people even remember what happens when they're drunk? Because right now, I couldn't recall a single clear thing past my third whiskey.

I looked down at myself. Black shirt paired with a ridiculous pink Hello Kitty pajama pants, soft against my skin, fitting way better than something this humiliating had any right to. Not rolled. Not hanging loose. Like someone had actually measured me for this crime against my dignity.

I didn't know whether to be furious or impressed. Staring down at Hello Kitty's smug little face, I was torn between laughing and finding the nearest mirror to cry into.

The apartment was quiet, except for a faint sound drifting from somewhere else. I got up, my throat dry enough that getting water became the only clear thought in my head, and made my way out toward what I remembered as the kitchen.

The kitchen matched the rest of the apartment. Black marble counters. Brushed steel. Warmth clearly hadn't made the cut when someone designed this place. I found a glass, filled it at the sink, and was halfway through drinking it when I heard him.

Renato's voice reached me first, low and carrying more weight than I'd heard from him before, the kind of voice that expected to be obeyed and usually was.

"—handle it before Thursday." A pause, heavy enough that I could feel it even from the kitchen. "I don't care what excuse they're giving you." Another pause, shorter this time. "Then find a better one."

It landed strange, sharp enough to mean something, vague enough to mean almost anything.

I froze mid sip, some instinct telling me I probably wasn't meant to be overhearing whatever this was.

He showed up in the doorway a second later. Phone still at his ear, black pants, no shirt, hair damp like he'd just stepped out of the shower. One shoulder leaned against the wall, easy, like he'd stood there a hundred times before.

He saw me and didn't miss a beat of his call. A pause, then, "Good." He hung up, slid the phone into his back pocket, and gave me his full attention now, something amused flickering across his face at whatever I looked like standing there.

I recovered fast. Or tried to.

"Thank you," I said, setting the glass down with more composure than I actually felt. "For last night. Whatever happened."

"Nothing happened," he said, leaning against the wall, arms loose over his chest. "You walked toward me like a man very committed to a dramatic entrance. I caught you before you hit the floor."

"Right." I tried piecing the night back together and mostly got fragments. "Uhmm... so what happened after I blacked out?"

Something shifted in his face, small and gone almost as fast as it came. "You don't remember anything else?"

"Pieces. Not enough to explain how I ended up there in the first place." I studied him, waiting for a reaction I couldn't quite name yet. "Should I be worried about that?"

He didn't answer right away. That pause told me more than anything he could've said.

"No," he said finally, quieter now. "You shouldn't."

"That wasn't convincing."

"It wasn't meant to convince you. It was meant to be true." He held my eyes when he said it, and something about the stillness in his face made me believe him more than I wanted to.

"How did you find me," I asked again, softer this time, less accusation and more genuine question.

"I didn't have to find you." He said it plainly, like it cost him something to admit. "You walked straight toward me. I just happened to already be standing there."

"That's not an answer either."

"It's the truest one I've got."

I wanted to push harder. Some old, careful part of me, the part that kept me alive doing what I did, was already noting every inconsistency in his story, every place where the timeline didn't quite line up. But another part of me, quieter and a lot less useful, was stuck on the way his voice had dropped when he said ‘you shouldn't’, like my safety actually mattered to him beyond politeness.

"You're very calm for someone who just watched a stranger black out." I said.

"You're not exactly a stranger anymore."

That landed somewhere I didn't expect it to.

I gave up on getting anything more useful out of him and set the empty glass in the sink instead, buying myself a second to think. When I turned back around he hadn't moved, still watching me with that particular attention that made the back of my neck warm despite myself.

"Do you always look at people like that?" I asked.

"Like what?"

"Like you're deciding something about them."

"Maybe I already decided," he said, "and I'm just enjoying watching you catch up."

I didn't have anything to say to that, so I didn't try.

We ended up in the living room a few minutes later. Me, still in his clothes. Him, in a plain black t-shirt he'd thrown on somewhere between the kitchen and here, matching, I realized, without meaning to notice.

We sat with the kind of careful distance two people keep when they're both aware of exactly how many times they've already crossed it.

"My stuff—" I started, already thinking about my car, my phone, whatever mess I'd left scattered across a bar floor.

"Car's in the building garage," he said, cutting me off smooth and easy, like he'd already anticipated the exact shape of my sentence. "Phone and wallet are on the counter by the door."

"Of course they are," I muttered.

"I'm efficient. Sue me."

"Efficient is one word for it."

"What's your word?"

"Suspicious." I said it lightly, but I meant it, and something in his eyes told me he knew exactly how much I meant it.

"You'll get used to it," he said.

"Will I?"

"You seem like the type who adjusts fast." He tilted his head slightly, studying me in a way that felt too accurate for someone who'd known me less than two full days. "You didn't even flinch when you realized where you woke up. Most people would've panicked."

"I don't panic."

"Yeah, I noticed," he said, quiet now, something almost thoughtful in it.

I stood, mostly because sitting there under that particular look was starting to feel dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with actual danger. I smoothed down the borrowed pajama pants like that was somehow going to make me look less ridiculous, and offered him something between a nod and a small, awkward bow.

"Thank you. Again. I should go."

"Should you." He said it like a statement, not a question, watching me with the same unbothered calm that made it impossible to tell what he actually wanted from me.

"Yes."

I made it two steps toward the door before he spoke again.

"Don't you think I deserve at least your number?" His voice dropped into something teasing, warm at the edges. "Twice in forty eight hours, and I still don't have a way to check if you made it home in one piece."

"I literally live two doors down the hallway."

He let out a low chuckle. "Not the same thing."

"Feels close enough."

"Humor me anyway."

"You clearly have resources. You'd figure out if I made it home."

"I'd rather hear it from you." He said it simply, no teasing left in it, and that honesty threw me more than anything else he'd said all morning.

I didn't have a good comeback for that. I pulled out my phone from exactly where he'd said it would be, and we traded numbers in silence, his mouth curved the whole time like he'd already known I'd cave before I did.

"There," I said, sliding my phone back into my pocket. "Happy?"

"Getting there."

"That seems to be your favorite answer."

"It's accurate most of the time."

I left before that smile could talk me into staying any longer than I already had.

---

The moment my door shut behind me, something in me snapped back into place. Whatever had softened in the last twenty minutes fell away fast, and by the time I crossed my own living room, I was myself again. Sharp, focused, and cold in the exact way that had kept me from getting killed.

Not giving a damn about the ridiculous pink Hello Kitty pants Renato had apparently dressed me in, I sat down at my desk and caught sight of them in my peripheral vision. I didn't bother changing. There were more important things demanding my attention than my own dignity.

I powered up my laptop and pulled up everything I could get my hands on from that first night, the night that actually mattered, the one that started all of this. Every camera near my building. Every access point within two blocks. Every digital trace of the hours before I ended up at Renato's door, mind hazy, body burning with a heat that had never once felt like ordinary alcohol.

Nothing.

No footage of me at the gathering that night, nothing showing who I'd been near, what I'd had in my hand before the world tilted sideways. Scrubbed. Clean in a way that didn't happen by accident. I dug deeper, cross-referencing timestamps, hunting for holes in the data that had no business existing at all.

Someone had drugged me. I was sure of it now, in a way I hadn't let myself be sure of before. And whoever did it had also made certain there'd be nothing left for me to find.

I sat back, jaw tight, running through names in my head and not liking where any of them led.

Well. That's the least of my problems right now.

I opened a different window, not a booking site, nothing that would leave a name or a card number or a flight plan for anyone to trace. A private forum, encrypted, the kind of place I usually used to move other people's secrets rather than my own. I typed out a message to a contact who dealt exclusively in cargo manifests and shipping routes that never officially existed on paper, the kind of exit that wouldn't show up on any list my father's men knew how to check.

‘I need passage out. No name attached. No trail. Tonight if possible.’

The reply came faster than I expected.

‘Dock 14, midnight.’

‘Okay.’

I looked once toward the window, toward the city outside it th

at suddenly felt a great deal smaller than it had yesterday, and started packing.

A few more hours, and this whole absurd arrangement would be someone else's problem to chase.