Chapter 1

The Wrong Shoes

I felt the stares before I understood them.

They slid across my skin like cold fingers—quick, judgmental, amused. I kept my chin level and my smile fixed because that was what servers did when the room decided you were the evening’s entertainment. The tray in my hands was steady. The lobster rolls sat in perfect rows. I told myself the looks meant nothing.

Sasha caught my wrist as I passed her station.

“You’re wearing the wrong shoes,” she murmured.

I looked down.

One black boot. One brown. Katya’s. Of course. This morning I had been late, half-asleep, scrambling for anything that would get me out of that house before Natasha’s voice could find me. I had grabbed the first pair that felt like boots and run. Now the entire restaurant was watching the mismatch like it was a private joke.

“I’ll fix it after this table,” I mouthed.

Sasha squeezed my wrist once and released me. “Storage unit. My slippers are there. Go.”

I turned toward table twenty-three.

I never saw the woman coming.

We collided with the soft, expensive sound of silk meeting seafood. Lobster rolls slid down the front of a dress that probably cost more than I would earn in a year. Butter and herbs stained the fabric in slow, irreversible streaks. The woman’s hazel eyes locked on mine with pure contempt.

“You clumsy little oaf.” Her voice cut through the restaurant like glass. “Do you have any idea what this dress is worth? Have you ever even seen something like this in your miserable life?”

I dropped to my knees, already reaching for the hem of my uniform to blot the mess. “I’m so sorry—let me—”

She slapped my hands away with her purse. The impact stung across my knuckles.

“Get your filthy hands off me.”

May appeared like a storm front. My boss’s face was already the color of old wine. The woman—Miss Modelo, I would learn later—turned on her without missing a breath.

“Do you even check the medical reports of the people you hire? Or are you simply blind?”

No one spoke to May like that. Ever. The restaurant had gone silent except for the soft clink of cutlery somewhere in the back. I stayed on my knees, head bowed, praying the floor would open.

Then the door opened.

Every head turned.

He was tall enough that the room seemed to rearrange itself around him. Dark curls. A jaw that could cut glass. Eyes the exact shade of deep forest after rain. He moved like a man who had never once needed to hurry for anyone. When he stopped in front of Miss Modelo, the air itself felt thinner.

“Miss Modelo,” he said. His voice was low, measured, expensive.

She straightened instantly, the fury on her face softening into something almost girlish. “Mr. Dimitri.”

Nikolai Dimitri. I filed the name away without meaning to. He glanced at me once—quick, uninterested, dismissive—and then offered Miss Modelo his arm. She took it. As they turned to leave she stabbed a finger in my direction.

“She will pay for everything. Get me her information or I will close this place down.”

I wrote my address and number on a scrap of receipt paper with shaking hands and gave it to her. She snatched it and swept out on Nikolai’s arm like a queen who had just sentenced a peasant.

May’s voice was quiet and lethal. “My office. Now.”

I followed her. The door closed behind us with a soft click that sounded final.

“Do you understand what you just did?” she asked without turning around.

“I’m sorry—”

“Sorry is not a currency I accept.” She faced me. “That man is Nikolai Dimitri. He owns half the jewelry this city wears. You just threw lobster on his date and drove him out of my restaurant. Customers left. Reputation is already bleeding.”

I dropped to my knees again. Pride was a luxury I could not afford. “Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll get him to come back. I’ll make him book a private room. Just give me a chance.”

The words left my mouth before I could stop them. May stared at me for a long, measuring second.

“Twenty-four hours,” she said. “Bring Nikolai Dimitri through that front door or do not bother coming back.”

I walked out of her office on legs that did not feel like mine. Sasha was waiting near the service station, eyes wide.

“She was a bitch,” Sasha whispered.

I could not answer. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I stepped into the cool night air. A message from an unknown number. Photos of a ruined designer dress and shoes. A final line that made the street tilt beneath my feet:

Eighty thousand dollars. Seventy-two hours. Or we involve the police.

I stood on the sidewalk outside May & Macy’s with mismatched boots and a future that had just narrowed to a single, impossible number, and for the first time in months I wondered whether surviving another day was even worth the effort.