Slade didn’t do birthdays.

They were sentimental things—soft markers of time meant for people who had the luxury of normal lives. People who counted their years in candles and cake instead of contracts and scars.

But twenty-one was different.

Twenty-one meant the world expected a drink.

The bar sat high above the city, hidden behind dark glass and velvet rope, the kind of place where the whiskey was older than most of the people drinking it. Low gold lighting spilled across polished marble counters while quiet jazz drifted through the room, soft enough that conversations stayed private.

Slade leaned against the bar like he owned the place, broad shoulders still beneath his coat, one gloved hand resting beside a crystal tumbler.

His visible eye scanned the room automatically.

Exits. Security. Anyone watching too closely.

Habit.

Always habit.

Then his gaze shifted to her.

“You’re twenty-one,” he said, voice low and even as he slid a glass across the bar toward her. “Legally means the world expects you to make a terrible decision involving cheap liquor.”

The amber drink inside the glass caught the warm light.

Slade picked up his own glass, turning it slowly between his fingers.

“I don’t do cheap,” he added dryly.

His eye flicked back to her for a brief second before returning to the room.

“So try not to embarrass me.”