The Night The Devil Wanted Me

ALESSIA

Four hours of smiling at men who look at you like you're something they could afford if they just kept the tab running long enough, and all I wanted was to get my heels off, count what I made, and get out the door before the night found another reason to keep me there — and at least tonight, out of all nights, the number was good. Almost five thousand. Enough to cover this month's medical bills for my mother without having to do the math three different ways and still come up short.

Talia was already in the chair in front of the mirror, chin up, one leg crossed over the other, one lash on, one already off, looking like she had just stepped out of a music video instead of a shift. Her contour was still sitting perfect. Four hours in and still sitting perfect, which was honestly offensive.

"I killed it up there tonight," she said, mostly to her own reflection. "Pretty sure he was watching me the whole time. I could just feel it."

Her neck was warm when she said it, that little color sitting right there under her jaw that she could never hide no matter what her mouth was doing.

Kira didn't even look up from unwrapping the tape around her ankle, peeling it off slow, wincing every third strip. She had heard this before. Many times.

"Girl, that doesn't even make sense," she muttered. "How would you know that when the man always got his mask on?"

"I just know," Talia said.

Anna groaned.

She was three seats down, elbow on the vanity, cotton pad halfway to her face, staring at the ceiling like she was asking God for patience she no longer had. She closed her eyes for one full second, opened them, and looked at Talia in the mirror.

"Oh my God, here we go again."

She dragged the cotton pad slow across her cheekbone and side-eyed Talia in the mirror.

"Talia thinks every rich man breathing in this building is secretly in love with her."

Talia turned in the chair immediately. The remaining lash swung a little.

"First of all," she said, pointing a manicured finger, "that is not what I said."

Kira snorted.

"You literally said that yesterday."

"No I didn't."

"You did."

"I said they are interested in me."

Anna laughed, pulled the cotton pad away from her cheek, looked at the foundation on it, and shook her head.

"Sweetheart, these men are interested in anything wearing heels."

Talia gasped. Hand to her chest. Full performance, the kind she did not reserve only for the floor.

"Wow. The jealousy in this room tonight is crazy."

I dropped my bag on the table and started wiping glitter off my shoulder. There was so much of it. It was in my hairline. It was probably in my lungs at this point. I had been finding it in places that made no logical sense for three shifts straight and had simply accepted it as part of my life now.

"You know what," Talia said, spinning toward me suddenly, "Alessia tell them. Tell them I'm not crazy."

I glanced up.

"You are a little crazy."

The room burst out laughing. Kira had to put her ankle down. Anna pointed at the mirror like she was pointing at a witness. Somebody in the back dropped a brush and didn't bother picking it up.

Talia clutched her chest.

"Wow. Betrayal."

"But," I added calmly, "you are also fine. So technically both things can be true."

"Thank you," Talia said immediately, pointing at me. The fingernail was perfect. Long and almond-shaped and the exact color of a bruise, which somehow still looked expensive on her. "See? Alessia understands the assignment."

Anna rolled her eyes so hard she had to tilt her head back a little.

"Girl please."

Then she leaned forward in her chair, both elbows on the vanity, voice shifting down to something different. The teasing gone out of it, replaced by something flatter and more deliberate, the kind of tone you only used when you actually needed people to stop laughing and listen.

"Let me explain something to y'all before somebody ends up crying in this dressing room again."

That got everyone's attention.

Kira put her phone face down. Talia stopped touching her hair. Even the girl with the headphones turned the volume down. The room went quiet.

"Y'all remember Bree?"

"East wing Bree?" Kira asked.

"Yes, that Bree."

Anna lowered her voice, leaning in a little, the way people lean in when what they're about to say is the kind of thing that sounds better quiet.

"Madam Jessica's favorite. Perfect attendance. Perfect attitude. Always had the VIP tables."

She sighed and set the cotton pad down.

"Girl caught feelings for one of her regulars."

"Oh God," Talia groaned immediately. She put her elbow on the vanity and dropped her chin into her hand.

Anna nodded.

"The guy was coming in every single week asking for her by name. Tipping crazy. Brought her flowers, little gifts, jewelry on the side."

Talia leaned forward dramatically.

"Okay but that sounds romantic though."

Anna pointed one finger straight at her, slow and certain.

"And that is exactly how stupidity begins."

Kira burst out laughing, nearly took her own eye out with the tape she was still holding.

Anna continued, unmoved.

"The man was married."

"Of course he was," Talia muttered, dropping back in her chair.

"Married married," Anna said. "Three kids. Wife. Big house in Jersey. The whole thing."

"How'd she find out?" Kira asked. She had gone completely still, tape dangling from one hand, forgotten.

Anna shrugged, easy, like the answer was the most unsurprising part of the whole story.

"His wife followed him."

The room went completely silent. Even the curling iron stopped buzzing, like it knew better than to interrupt.

"Hold on," Talia said, leaning forward like she had just sat up straight in a movie theater. "You mean followed followed?"

Anna nodded.

"The girl sat outside in her car for two hours. When he walked in she waited another forty minutes, then marched straight through the front door like she owned the building."

Kira blinked. Her mouth was slightly open.

"Oh hell."

"Found Bree in the lounge. Didn't even look at the man. Went straight for Bree."

Talia covered her mouth with both hands.

"No."

Anna pointed.

"Yes."

She leaned back, arms crossing, the way you lean back when the story has already done what it needed to do and the rest is just detail.

"Security had to drag them apart."

Kira whistled low, shaking her head slow.

"That wife must've been crazy."

Anna shook her head slowly.

"No honey. That woman is married, don't be ridiculous, any married woman could do the exact same thing ."

The room sat with that for a second, everybody quiet in their own way, the only sound somebody clicking a cap back onto a lip liner.

Then Talia sighed.

"Okay that's tragic but also…"

She leaned back. Crossed her arms. That smile already creeping in at the corner, the one she could not keep off her face even when she was trying.

"That still doesn't apply to me."

Anna dropped her head into her hands.

"Oh my God."

Talia flipped her hair. One clean, unbothered toss that landed perfectly.

"Look at me."

Kira snorted.

"We unfortunately are."

Talia ignored her, turning back toward the mirror with the energy of someone who had already won an argument inside their own head and was simply waiting for the rest of the room to catch up.

"I'm just saying if a man like Lorenzo walked in here and saw this face—"

She gestured slowly at herself like she was presenting evidence to a jury.

"I don't see how he wouldn't be interested."

Anna laughed.

"You don't even know what that man looks like."

"I know what he looks like where it counts."

Kira squinted.

"What does that mean?"

Talia grinned, slow and deliberate.

"Money."

Kira burst out laughing, leaning forward with one hand slapping the counter.

"That is the most honest thing you have said all night."

Talia leaned closer, dropping her voice like she was about to say something that deserved more privacy than a shared dressing room could offer. She even glanced toward the door first.

"Also let's be real. A man that rich?"

She raised a brow.

"Pretty sure he works out."

Anna groaned, tilting her head back.

"Oh Lord."

But Talia was fully in it now. Both elbows on the vanity, eyes bright, chin forward, the way she got when a topic had her complete and total attention and there was genuinely no stopping her. She had that look like she had been thinking about this since she clocked in.

"I'm serious. Think about it. Tall, dark, expensive suit, probably built like one of those billionaire bodyguard types in the movies — the kind where you know there are abs underneath that jacket and you just have to make peace with that information."

Kira shook her head slowly.

"You have invented this man completely from scratch."

"I'm working with available evidence."

"The available evidence is a mask and a suit."

Talia waved her hand like that was a minor detail.

"That is enough."

She paused, then lowered her voice further, eyes cutting left and right once like she was checking for people who didn't need to hear this, which was theater because the whole room was already listening and everybody knew it.

"And those hands."

Kira looked up from her ankle.

"What hands?"

"The ones when he took off his gloves."

Anna froze. Cotton pad suspended in the air. Not moving. Not blinking. Fully arrested.

"Wait. You saw his hands?"

Talia grinned. Slow. Satisfied. The face of someone who had been holding the best card at the table since she sat down and had just decided now was the moment.

"Oh I saw everything that mask couldn't hide."

Kira leaned forward so fast her chair scraped the floor and she didn't even flinch at the sound.

"Tell us."

Talia lowered her voice like what came next required some kind of security clearance. She held up one finger.

"Big hands."

Kira nodded, completely serious, like she was taking notes in her head.

"Important."

"Veins."

Anna's eyebrow went up. Cotton pad still hanging suspended in the air like she had forgotten it existed.

"Also important."

"And the watch?" Talia whispered, leaning in those last two inches.

Kira gasped, hand going to her collarbone.

"Rolex?"

Talia shook her head slowly. The exact way you shake your head at something that almost insulted you by existing in the same sentence.

"Better."

Anna blinked twice.

"What does better than Rolex even mean?"

Talia smiled, settling back in her chair with the full confidence of someone who had personally held the watch in question and never needed to look at the price tag.

"It means the kind of watch where you don't even ask the price."

Kira leaned back in her chair. Pressed her lips together. Let out a long slow breath through her nose and stared at the ceiling for a second.

"Damn."

Then Talia sighed. Long and dreamy and completely unashamed about it, her eyes going soft and distant like she was looking at something the rest of the room couldn't see, replaying whatever she had clocked from across the floor frame by frame in her own head.

"I'm telling you that man is dangerous."

Anna snorted, finally using the cotton pad again.

"Dangerous?"

Talia nodded. Dead serious. Not a trace of the performance in it.

"The kind of dangerous that looks like he knows exactly what he's doing in a room alone with you. Like he is not in any kind of rush and you are going to feel every single second of it."

Kira clutched her chest laughing, bent forward over her knees, shoulders shaking, her whole body giving in to it.

"Oh my God."

"I'm serious!"

Talia sat straight up and put one hand flat on the vanity, fingers spread, like she needed it anchored while she said the rest.

"Men like that walk around like they got secrets. And I want every single one of them."

Anna shook her head, using the cotton pad with aggressive energy now, scrubbing her cheek like the conversation itself required extra effort.

"You are writing a whole romance novel about a man whose face you have not even seen."

"Excuse me," Talia said, one hand returning to her chest, "imagination is important."

Kira pointed at her with one finger, still halfway laughing, tears sitting in the corner of one eye.

"Yeah until imagination gets you pregnant."

The room exploded. Anna knocked her water bottle and caught it one-handed without breaking eye contact with the mirror. I had to put my eyeliner down because my hand was shaking from laughing. Somebody behind me was wheezing. Actual wheezing.

Even I laughed that time.

Then the door opened.

And everything stopped.

All at once, the way it always was when she walked in. Madam Jessica's heels hit the floor in that specific rhythm — not fast, not slow, just exact — and three conversations cut off at the same time. Eyes moved. Nobody missed anything. She never needed to raise her voice.

"Alessia."

My stomach dropped before the rest of me caught up.

"Yes, Madam."

"Mr. Moretti needs you to serve him tonight."

Silence.

Talia blinked. Once. Her mouth opened and nothing came out, her hand frozen halfway to her hair.

Kira whispered.

"What?"

Talia pointed at herself. Slowly. One finger. Like she needed to confirm she was still physically present and accounted for in the room and the laws of logic still applied.

"Are we sure he didn't mean me?"

Madam Jessica didn't even look at her. Not a flicker, not a glance, not a single degree of movement in that direction.

"He chose Alessia."

Talia sank back in the chair slowly, like something had genuinely landed that wasn't supposed to. Which was not something that happened to Talia.

"Wow."

Kira whispered beside her, barely moving her lips, eyes still forward.

"You just got humbled."

Anna smirked into the mirror without turning around.

"By a man in a mask."

Talia sighed. Long, suffering, deeply dramatic, the kind of sigh that started somewhere below the ribs and required the full chest to complete.

"This is discrimination against beautiful women."

Madam Jessica turned back to me. Her eyes held mine for just a second — steady, certain, carrying something I couldn't name yet.

"Come to my office."

She turned and walked out. Her heels hit the hallway and the sound got smaller and then there was nothing.

I stood there for a second, the room behind me still buzzing, still processing, still being entirely itself.

Behind me, Talia turned slowly in her chair.

"Girl."

Kira leaned forward on both elbows.

"What did you even do?"

"I didn't do anything."

Anna raised a brow without turning around, watching me in the mirror.

"That makes it worse."

Talia shook her head slowly, staring at the space where Madam Jessica had just been like she was still running the numbers and they weren't adding up right.

"Do you know how many girls in this building have tried to get that man's attention?"

Kira pointed one dramatic finger at the ceiling.

"And he picked the one girl who minds her own business."

Talia pressed both hands flat on the vanity and looked at me directly.

"Okay but if he takes the mask off and he's ugly are you still going?"

Kira gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth.

"That's rude."

Talia shrugged one shoulder, unbothered.

"I'm asking important questions."

Anna smirked, finally putting the cotton pad down.

"If he is ugly he is rich enough for it not to matter."

Kira nodded immediately.

"True."

Talia pointed at me through the mirror, the bruise-colored nail catching the light.

"But if he looks like some mysterious billionaire villain with abs—"

She fanned herself with one hand, slow and deliberate.

"Girl I would pass out."

Anna shook her head, reaching for her mascara.

"You would embarrass all of us."

Talia grinned, wide and unrepentant.

"Worth it."

I picked up my bag. My hands were moving but my head had gone somewhere else entirely, running through something I wasn't ready to say out loud yet. I could still hear them talking as I walked out, Talia's voice carrying over everything else the way it always did.

Then I went to Madam Jessica's office.

She lit a cigarette when we got there and smoked while she talked, the way she always did when she wanted to make something feel like a conversation and not an instruction. The office smelled like old wood and whatever she wore, something expensive and specific that I had never been able to name.

"You are a good girl, Alessia."

She exhaled slow, the smoke rising straight up and then going flat when it hit the ceiling.

"Beautiful too. But beauty without money is just a pretty problem — doesn't pay anything, doesn't fix anything, doesn't keep the lights on."

She tapped the ash off the side, watching it fall, not in any rush.

"You've been careful. Careful doesn't build anything."

She looked at me straight, cigarette hand dropping to her side, her eyes doing the thing they did when she wanted you to understand she was finished performing and saying the actual thing now.

"Be brave. That is all I am saying to you tonight."

She turned back toward the window and that was the end of it, the conversation closing the way her conversations always closed, clean and final, no space left for you to argue your way back in.

I nodded, said nothing, and walked back down the hallway with Madam Jessica's cigarette smell following me the whole way, which felt accurate.

You know what she's saying. You've always known what she's saying. And the answer is still no.

I put the makeup back on, hands moving through something automatic while everything else in my head ran the other direction, working through what I was and wasn't willing to do and landing in the same place I always landed. Same answer. Same line. I pressed the contour in and didn't look too hard at my own eyes in the mirror.

I picked up my water bottle and finished what was left in one long drink, standing there for a second with the empty bottle in my hand. It tasted normal. Fine. Maybe slightly flat toward the bottom but I had been on my feet for four hours and my mouth was dry and I didn't think anything of it.

Okay. Just go do the job.

I stood up. Checked the mirror one last time. Pressed both palms flat against my outfit, feeling the fabric solid underneath my hands, something real to hold onto for one more second.

Then I walked out.

Behind me, faintly, through the closing door —

Kira's voice, low —

"Girl if you marry him don't forget us."

Then Talia, louder, zero shame, zero hesitation, not even waiting for the door to finish closing —

"And if he has a brother send him to me."

Anna laughed.

"Oh my God."

The hallway got to me before I made it five steps.

Wait. Something is wrong.

Not dizzy-wrong. Not tired-wrong. Something moving through my body that had no business being there, heat climbing up from my chest into my face, my feet not landing quite right on the floor, the whole hallway doing something slow and strange that I could not explain and could not stop.

I put my hand flat against the wall.

It didn't help.

And then I walked straight into someone.

He didn't move. Not even slightly. Just absorbed the impact like it was nothing, like he had been standing there expecting it, and the smell of him hit me before anything else did — expensive and clean and something underneath that, something darker and specific that went straight through my chest before I had even looked up.

My hand lifted.

Found his jaw.

Warm skin. Sharp bone underneath. My thumb pressed in without permission, tracing the line of it slow, and he didn't pull away, didn't say anything, just tilted his head down slightly like he was waiting to see what I was going to do next.

My fingers slid to his collar.

Found the knot of his tie.

Pulled.

"Careful," he said quietly.

Low voice. Completely level. Not surprised. Not annoyed. Just watching me the way you watch something you haven't decided what to do with yet.

My hands kept moving anyway, down his chest, across muscle that had no business being that solid underneath a suit jacket, lower, finding his belt buckle and working at it with fingers that were not asking me anything anymore.

His hand came down over both of mine.

Firm. Certain. One smooth movement and my back was against the wall, his body a few inches away, close enough that the heat coming off him was its own thing, something I could feel on my skin before he had even touched me.

His hand wrapped around my wrists. Not tight. Just there. Holding them against the wall above me like he had all the time in the world.

He looked at my face in the low light.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing right now?"

I looked up at him. My head too light. Everything at the edges of my vision doing something soft and warm.

"I want you to fuck me."

Something moved through his expression. Not shock. Something slower than shock, something that had been sitting underneath the surface already and was just now deciding to show itself.

He went completely still.

The hallway held its breath.

Then he let out one slow breath through his nose and leaned closer, close enough that his voice came out just above a whisper.

"You don't even know who I am."

"I don't care."

His thumb moved across the inside of my wrist. One pass. Slow and deliberate. The contact sent something sharp all the way up my arm and I pressed my shoulder blades flat against the wall without meaning to.

"You smell like trouble," he said.

"And you smell expensive."

The corner of his mouth lifted. The smallest thing. But it was there.

"You should walk away."

"I don't want to."

His gaze moved over my face, taking its time, not rushing any part of it, and then his hand slid up behind my neck, fingers curling warm against my skin, and the moment he touched me there the distance between us was gone.

He kissed me.

Not slow. Not careful. Direct and certain, the kind of kiss that had already decided before either of us said a word.

I kissed him back just as hard because stopping was not a thought that existed in my body anymore.

His other hand moved to my waist and pulled me in and I grabbed the front of his shirt and held on because my legs were genuinely not cooperating and I was not going to pretend otherwise.

"You're dangerous," he murmured against my mouth.

"So are you."

A quiet sound came from him that almost sounded like a laugh. His forehead dropped against mine for just a second, both of us breathing, the hallway empty and silent around us.

"Last chance."

His voice dropped lower.

"Walk away."

I pulled him closer by his collar instead.