Chapter 002

The taxi dropped me two blocks from Club Verona. I didn’t want anyone to see me getting out in front the bouncers had a habit of talking, and in this city, gossip spread faster than disease.

The moment I stepped onto the pavement, the air changed. The night smelled like perfume, cigarette smoke, and wet asphalt. Neon lights from the sign above shimmered against puddles, turning everything pink and gold.

Inside, the bass thumped so deep it rattled in my ribs. Laughter mixed with the metallic clink of glasses, and the place already pulsed with money the kind of money people spent when they wanted to forget something.

I waved at Dani, the girl at the coat counter, and slipped into the back room. The girls’ dressing area was small but crowded, mirrors lined with bulbs, air thick with hairspray and chatter.

“You’re late again,” someone muttered without looking up.

“I am always late, it’s kinda my thing now” I replied, hanging my jacket on a hook.

I peeled off my jeans and crop top and slid into my uniform the black velvet bodysuit and short skirt that screamed look but don’t touch. The manager said the outfit was “classy,” but the neckline disagreed. I adjusted the straps, checked my reflection, and gave myself one last tired smile.

At least the tips were good near the roulette tables.

When I stepped back into the main room, the atmosphere hit me like warm smoke. The low hum of conversation, the roll of dice, the spinning wheel all of it felt like another world.

Men in tailored suits leaned close to whisper to women they didn’t know, cards flicked across tables, and gold champagne fizzed under chandeliers.

I grabbed my tray, balanced three glasses of whiskey, and made my way through the crowd.

“Mara!” Tony, the floor supervisor, waved me over. His voice was always half-yelling over the music. “Roulette section’s short. Take it.”

“Got it.”

The roulette corner was always busy, the high rollers liked it there. I slipped behind the table, setting down drinks and brushing stray chips into neat piles.

“Another round, sir?” I asked one of the men, forcing the polite smile I’d practiced a hundred times.

He smirked, sliding a fifty across the green felt. “Only if you bring it yourself.”

It was against the club policy for the customers to interact physically with us but sometimes they always tried to test the waters.

“I’ll have my colleagues bring up your order sir.” I said, smiling sweetly at him.

“I don’t want you fucking Collegue, I need you to serve me as a sweet little thing you are.”

Right now I trying to remember what page in my anger management book that said “do not hit a stupid man for attempting to be stupid”

I smiled, keeping up the façade even though I desperately wanted to punch his nose. But I couldn’t. I needed this job. I needed every last dirty dollar that came with it, and one blown temper could mean being blacklisted from the whole circuit — and that wasn’t an option.

“I’ll have my colleagues bring up your order, sir,” I said, voice syrup-sweet as I walked away.

Behind my back, I rolled my eyes so hard I felt them twitch. The man mumbled something and thudded his fist on the table for attention; the dealer handed over another stack of chips and the wheel kept turning, uncaring. The club smelled like sweat and perfume and too much money — the kind of smell that crawled under your skin and tried to convince you it was home. It wasn’t mine.

I topped off glasses, balanced a tray, moved between bodies and tables like I’d done it my whole life. Each smile was measured, calibrated. Each laugh was a currency I’d learned to spend sparingly. Dani waved me over once to help with a spill, and we exchanged that look the girls gave each other — the one that said, I see you. Breathe. Survive.

Tony barked orders from the corner like he thought the club ran on his breath alone. “Collins—tables four and five, now. High rollers on four, keep them sweet.” He used my last name like a hammer. I wiped a lipstick smear from a crystal glass and shoved a napkin into my back pocket for later.

Between rounds, my phone buzzed against my hip. A text from Lara: All good. Mom slept through. Don’t worry. I stared at those words like they were a lifeline. For a second I let myself believe them. Then another customer called my name and the moment was gone.

The night moved in rhythms — the wheel, the laugh, the clink of ice. A woman at the far table squealed at a win and her friends shrieked with her like they’d been rescued. It was beautiful in a way that hurt. People came here to forget things they should’ve dealt with and paid handsomely to feel lighter for an hour. Meanwhile, my debts stacked themselves into neat, patient towers at home.

An old man tried to palm my hand as he asked for the check. I slid away before he got close, smile unchanged. “I’ll have the manager bring that for you, sir.” The man huffed but paid anyway. Everyone paid for something.

At the end of the night the money smelled different thick and heavy in my apron pocket, mostly singles and a few crumpled tens. Not enough to fix anything, but enough to keep the lights on for another week. I counted it twice in the back room, fingernails stained with espresso and makeup remover. David the club’s in-house bouncer and my friend, whistled low. “Look at you, Queen of Hustle.”

“Don’t start,” I muttered, but I tucked the bills into my small wallet with a steadier hand than I felt.

“You know, you could get double of that every night if you joined the dancers on stage.”

Rolling my eyes at him “Don’t be delusional, I have two left feet, I’d probably brings this whole building down if I should get my hands on that pool.”

He threw his head back and laughed, a sincere laugh and it felt kinda weird but good to actually share a genuine moment like that.

Back in the dressing room, the girls peeled off their smiles like old bandages. The room hummed with laughter, cheap perfume, and the faint crackle of the old hair dryer someone had forgotten to unplug.

“Ugh, my feet are bleeding,” Dani groaned, kicking off her heels and collapsing onto the nearest bench. “If one more creep asks me if I’m ‘new here,’ I swear I’ll pour his drink on him.”

That earned a round of muffled giggles from the other girls. I sat in front of the mirror, wiping off the last of my lipstick with a tissue that looked like it had fought a battle.

Then Sasha, loud, blonde, and always in the know—burst through the door, phone in hand and eyes wide. “You guys are not gonna believe this!”

We barely looked up at first; Sasha’s drama was a nightly routine. But then she said it—

“Adrian Holt’s throwing a birthday party next weekend.”

That name got everyone’s attention.

Dani sat up. “The Adrian Holt? As in, the billionaire tech guy with the glass house and private island?”

“Uh-huh,” Sasha said, smugly flipping her hair. “That’s the one. I just saw the post on social apparently it’s going to be massive. Black-and-gold theme. Every important person in the city’s invited—models, CEOs, politicians, you name it.”

I tried not to look interested, but my reflection betrayed me; my brows lifted just a little.

“Is it open invite?” Dani asked, already knowing the answer.

Sasha laughed. “Honey, please. You don’t just walk into an Adrian Holt event. You need an engraved invitation and probably a bloodline of money.”

The room buzzed with excitement. Everyone started talking over one another—about what they’d wear if they ever got the chance, about the kind of men who’d be there, about how it wasn’t fair that people like that lived in another universe entirely.

I kept quiet, pretending to scroll through my phone. But inside, something sharp and alive stirred beneath my exhaustion. The kind of hunger that made your pulse pick up.

“Can you imagine?” one of the girls said, half-dreaming. “The champagne, the gowns, the view from that place…”

I could. Too easily.

The laughter faded around me, but my mind kept going—painting pictures I’d never seen in real life. Chandeliers, velvet dresses, hands that didn’t smell like coffee and sanitizer.

Sasha was still talking, “He’s thirty-two, single, and get this he doesn’t do public appearances often. This might be the only time this year he’s seen in person.”

My heart gave a small, uninvited flutter.

“That man could buy the whole city if he wanted to,” Dani sighed. “What would it even feel like, living that kind of life?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly, more to myself than anyone else. “But maybe one day, I’ll find out.”

They all laughed. playful, harmless but I wasn’t joking.

Because I just had a crazy thought.