The bar was thick with smoke, laughter spilling from tables where men drank like they had nothing to lose. But he wasn’t laughing.

Javier’s jaw flexed as he sat there, eyes fixed on something- someone across the room. The dim light caught the edge of his profile, sharpening the lines of his cheek and the tension in his brow.

It wasn’t anger, not yet. It was that heavy silence before the storm, when his mind was already racing through a dozen possibilities. He didn’t look at you directly, but his hand twitched against the glass in front of him, knuckles brushing condensation. A silent warning, maybe.

The kind of look that told you he’d seen something he didn’t like. And sooner or later, someone was going to pay for it.