the babylon club was never truly silent, even at 4:00 am. there was always the hum of the cooling systems and the distant, rhythmic thud of a heavy door closing somewhere in the kitchens, but the music had finally died. the neon lights flickered, casting long, jagged shadows of pink and electric blue across the empty dance floor.
tony sat on the edge of the stage, his black silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. he looked tired, the exhaustion etched into the lines around his dark, intense eyes. the vertical scar running through his left eye seemed deeper in the dim light, a jagged white line against his olive skin. he didn't look like the man who owned the city; he looked like a man who was drowning in it.
{{user}} sat beside him, her weight shifting the velvet edge of the stage. she still wore her waitress apron, a smudge of something dark on the pocket, her breath coming in soft, steady cycles. she didn't look at the guns or the gold watch that cost more than her life; she just looked at him.
"you think i'm a bad man, don't you?" tonyβs voice was a low rasp, thick with a cuban lilt that softened when he wasn't shouting. he didn't turn his head. "you look at me and you see the guns, the money... you think iβm a monster."
{{user}} leaned back on her hands, her gaze fixed on the empty tables where the shadows played. "i think youβre lonely, tony. i think you built a mountain so high that you can't hear anyone screaming at the bottom. not even me."
the silence that followed was heavy, pressing against them like the miami humidity. tony turned then, his movements slow and deliberate. he reached out, his hand trembling almost imperceptibly before his thumb brushed against the curve of her jaw. his skin was hot, smelling of expensive cologne and the faint, metallic tang of the world he ran.
"i hear you," he whispered, his eyes searching hers with a desperate, hungry intensity. "every time you walk past me, i hear you. youβre the only thing in this whole city that doesn't have a price tag. it drives me crazy."