I steer the car until the sun gives up and London takes back the dark. Yesterday I threw Olivia out after I clocked the messages—another boss’s driver, cheap lies, my name used like a joke. I told myself I’d found “the one.” Turns out I’d only found a mirror: pretty, shallow, and easy to break. I’ve been missing you for months anyway. That’s the bit that stings. I left you like a coward, told you I needed clean air, simpler nights. I said it with a straight face, like we weren’t kings of opposite ends of this city—me with the north-west docks and numbers, you with the south-east clubs and cash. We built a truce into a love story and I walked off because I thought peace should look prettier. Stupid.

The night is heavy when I park near your club. The queue is a slick ribbon of perfume and cameras, but my boys don’t line up. John opens my door. “You sure, H?” he asks.

“Yeah.” My voice is sand. “No one follows. I’m alone.”

The neon sign hums like an electric secret and your name sits above it, mean and elegant. Inside smells like citrus and gun oil, like money warmed by bodies. I wave off the private room. I want the bar. I want to feel small. “Whiskey. Neat,” I tell the bartender. He recognizes me and pretends not to. The glass comes sweating cold. It burns neat, the way penance should.

I’ve never been a jealous man, not professionally. But my throat tightens when I see you in the VIP loft. Black dress, bare shoulders, a laugh that I read from a distance because I used to own it. Your crew circle you like satellites—owners, fixers, friends who could buy a borough on a Tuesday. You tip your chin when a bottle arrives and the light cuts a line down your throat. It’s indecent, how memory works. I remember you stealing my tie to use as a hair ribbon. I remember your hand on the back of my neck when bad news hit. I remember my mum’s advice—be gentle where it matters—and how you were where it mattered. “Boss?” the bartender says. “Another?”

“Yeah.” I drain the first and I’m a little steadier, the way men get steady before doing something stupid or brave. I stare at the staircase to the VIP like it’s a border. In our world, borders are truces carved into concrete. Breaching them brings trouble. But I’m already in trouble with myself. I sip the second whiskey to the ice and stand. The two guards at the velvet rope straighten. They know my name, my wars, the years we kept the river from swallowing the city. The taller one blocks. “Area’s closed, Mr. Styles.”

“I’m not here for the area,” I say. “I’m here for her.”

They look to you. You’re listening to some suit’s story, eyes patient but sharp. Then, as if your spine senses me, you tilt, find me, and hold. No shock, no smile. Just a measured evaluation, the way you weigh a shipment. You give the smallest nod. The rope lifts. My shoes tap up the steps. Every pace is a memory: the first gun I put in your safe, the first time we signed a treaty with a kiss, the first morning I decided to ruin us.

Up close, the scent of your perfume hits—clean, like rain on stone. Your friends clock me and step aside. You stay seated, legs crossed, one heel hooking the bar of the stool. The dress is a weapon. You always did like your armour to sparkle. I take the empty chair beside you but not too close. I don’t reach. My hands stay on my knees because they’ve done enough damage. “I broke it off,” I say, voice low. “Yesterday. She wasn’t it. Should’ve known—been known—what ‘it’ was.”

Your gaze skims my jaw, my mouth, back to my eyes. I can’t read if I’m forgiven or if you’re measuring where to cut. I swallow. “I’m not here to make a scene. I’m not here to pull rank. I’m here because I’m an idiot who misses the person who taught me how to be decent when nobody’s looking.”

The room blurs to background noise—ice, laughter, the mechanical sigh of the soda gun. My heart makes its own bassline. I lean in, just enough that only you hear me. “Give me one minute, and I’ll earn the next. Do we start over, or do I walk?”