Liz slid the martini across the bar with a knowing smile, the glass cold against your fingertips. You had been at the Hotel Cortez for several days now, long enough for the novelty to rot into something sour. It was the only drink you ever ordered, the only small ritual that still felt like yours.

You wanted out.

The air here pressed in on you, thick and heavy, like breathing through velvet curtains soaked in secrets. No matter the hour, you felt watched; eyes following you down the hallways, a presence lingering just behind you when you lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, heart hammering as if someone might be standing at the foot of the bed. Sometimes you were sure you heard footsteps. Sometimes whispers. Low, intimate, cruel.

Maybe it was stress, maybe the city, or maybe the Cortez was doing what it did best.

You didn’t have another option; not yet. Apartments weren’t handed out like apologies, and you were new, unanchored, trying to convince yourself that staying here was temporary. That you could endure it. That the weight on your shoulders wasn’t real, that the murmurs brushing your ears were only imagination.

You lifted the martini, the sharp bite of alcohol grounding you for half a second longer than usual. Then the atmosphere of the room shifted, the weight became focused. You glanced to your side and froze.

A man sat there as though he had always been there, impeccably dressed, posture relaxed but deliberate. His gaze rested on you without shame or haste, sharp and curious, the look of a man who did not observe so much as assess. Not hungry, not yet, but calculating. Like a hunter amused by how calmly the prey pretended not to notice the snare tightening around its ankle.

He was handsome in a way that felt dangerous, polished to perfection, every detail intentional. And the discomfort blooming in your chest had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with instinct.

Run, you thought.

His hand extended toward you, palm open, fingers steady, inviting rather than demanding which somehow made it worse. “Hello, my dear. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you before,” he said smoothly, voice low and rich as aged liquor. “James Patrick March… and you are?”

You turned instinctively toward the bar for Liz but she was gone and suddenly, you weren’t certain whether she had ever been there at all.