2

Correction: one person dances at parties like these.

“Uh-oh,” Jorden warns with a wicked grin. She points down at her hips, which are starting to shimmy from side to side like they have a life of their own.

“Jor…”

“Uh-oh!” she repeats in a delighted cackle. “I can’t help it, Cora! It’s—I’m—They’re aliiive!”

“We’ve been here for twenty minutes and you’re already wasted?”

“No,” Jorden claps back, “I’m having fun. You should try it sometime.”

I love her, I really do—I just can’t match her energy all the time. Definitely not without significantly more alcohol in me.

She, on the other hand, doesn’t need a drop of the stuff. Even when she’s sober as a judge, Jorden is a ten out of ten. She laughs loud, loves loud, lives loud.

It’s miraculous, honestly, because she’s been busting her butt to make ends meet for as long as I’ve known her. She was raised by a single mom off food stamps, working in diners like Quintaño’s long before she was actually old enough to do so legally.

She’s right: she does deserve a break. Life is hard.

“You go dance,” I say sheepishly. “I’m gonna go find another drink first so I can keep up with you.”

She shrugs and flips her hair over her shoulder. “Fine. But if you find me grinding up on some hot young thing when you get back, it’ll be your loss!”

I grin and kiss her on the cheek. “I hope I find you grinding up on two of them.”

“Don’t tempt me, girl. I just might. I really just might.”

Laughing, we separate and I go back inside the house in search of a bathroom. I put on a brave face while Jorden was watching, but as soon as I find a bathroom, I shut the door behind me, lock it, and draw in a huge, shuddering breath.

This is too much. It was a bad idea to come here. Back to a place like this, around people like this… I turned my back on this world. I never wanted to return.

As soon as I get out of here, I’m going to double down on that vow.

When I touch the back of my neck, my palm comes away soaked with clammy sweat.

“Midnight,” I swear to my reflection in the mirror. “Just a couple more hours, then the clock will strike midnight and you can say goodbye to these people forever.”

Midnight.

We’re almost there.

I rinse my sweaty neck and step out of the bathroom, ready to brave the rest of the party. Through the distant double doors, I catch a brief glimpse of Jorden in the crowd. But before I can even get a step in her direction, I feel an unexpected hand on my waist.

A voice accompanies it. “Hey there, gorgeous.”

I follow the sound of the slurred greeting to a rumpled man with a damp forehead. He’s swaying from side to side.

“Hi.” I give him a tight smile and retreat towards the wall.

“I came over because you look lonely.” His words are breathy, arriving on a cloud of alcohol fumes. “Thought I’d keep ya company.”

I wrinkle my nose. “‘Oh, that’s nice of you. I’m fine, though. But thanks!”

If he understands the implied goodbye, he doesn’t show it. He steps closer, his belly pressing against me. “Who are you with?”

“My boyfriend,” I lie reflexively. “He’s getting me a drink right now.”

He hesitates for a second and then cackles. “Bullshit.”

That throws me for a loop, mostly because he’s so certain. “I don’t—I mean—How would you even know?”

“Because you’re here to meet him. Just like the rest of them.” He says it with more of that same finality. Like he knows something I don’t.

I have lots of questions, but none I want to sit and discuss with this charming fellow. I try to edge past him. “I’m just going to—”

“He isn’t that great, you know.” He shifts with me, blocking my path. “Everyone is here for Ivan, but I’ll show you what a real man can do for you. There’s no line to get to me.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” I mutter to myself. To him, I say, “I have literally no idea what you are talking about. You probably don’t, either. You’re drunk. So if you could just let me go—”

Suddenly, his sweaty, meaty hand slaps my ass.

Distantly, I hear threads of my dress popping. But it’s like paying attention to a dripping faucet when your house is on fire. I have bigger fish to fry.

Anyone who’s ever worked in the food service industry knows that customers do jaw-dropping things. Married men leave their phone numbers on the receipt; friendly-looking grandpas pinch your ass; their wives hiss that you’re a slut beneath their breaths.

And anyone who’s ever been stuck working in the food service industry, even when they’re so sick of all those things, knows that there are two choices: you can take it all on the chin and keep your job—or you can live out the fantasy of every server ever and show the motherfuckers who crossed the line that they messed with the wrong person.

Today, I’m the wrong person.

And this is the motherfucker who crossed the line.

IVAN

I’m bored out of my fucking mind.

Everywhere I look at this party, I see the least interesting person I’ve ever met. And the next, and the next. For a bunch of scumbags and criminals, you’d think they would have something engaging to discuss.

But they don’t. The furthest thing from it, in fact.

Because just about every soul under my roof tonight is here for the same irritating reason.

To get me to marry.

Whether it’s them I’m meant to be marrying, or their daughter, sister, cousin, mother, whoever, they aren’t too particular. They just want to get closer to me. To my empire. By any means necessary.

I don’t even blame them. The Pushkin Bratva is the biggest shark in a sea full of them. We have the money. The power. We decide who gets what and when, and the usual answers to those questions are “us,” “all of it,” and “right fucking now.”

“These things will be the death of me,” I mutter.

“So why are you here?” asks Yasha, my best friend and right-hand man, as he snares a toothpick of cheese from a passing waiter.

“Because Anya will be the death of me if I bail.”

He snorts through a mouthful of brie. “True. That sister of yours owes you one for what she’s putting you through tonight.”

“That she does,” I agree.

But even that is a massive understatement. I wouldn’t be here, subjecting myself to this bullshit, for anyone but her.

If it weren’t for me, though, she’d be going through hellfire right now. Our father was furious enough when he found out what she’d done. Rebuffing half a dozen decent marriage proposals in order to elope with a lowly Bratva foot soldier? It’s blasphemy in the eyes of the old bastard who birthed us. Daughters, in our father’s mind, are pawns to be moved around the board as he sees fit. God forbid they should marry for love.

I think she should do whatever the hell she wants. That being said, I’m not exactly big on the concept. Marry for love: fine, if that’s what Anya desires.