The room smelled like smoke and cheap cleaner. The walls were stained with time, the flickering neon from the sign outside bleeding through the blinds like a heartbeat—steady, red, dangerous. Jason sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows on his knees, shirt half-unbuttoned, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. You were standing by the cracked mirror, fixing your lipstick with hands that shouldn’t be this steady considering who you were with.

“You know this place is a dump, right?” you said, lips twitching at the corners.

Jason didn’t look up. “You keep coming back.”

You rolled your eyes, capping the lipstick. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”

But you did. Or maybe you liked what happened here. What only happened here. Where the world couldn’t reach you. Where your name didn’t matter—where his record didn’t either. Outside, you were the daughter of him. The man with power, reach, money. The kind of man who played politics by day and had people followed by night. The kind of man who would have Jason Duval buried alive if he knew.

And Jason? Jason was a drug smuggler with blood on his hands and scars on his back. He didn’t belong in the same city as you, let alone in your arms. He knew that. You both did. But here, in this motel room with a buzzing light and a cash-only policy, none of it mattered.

You turned, finally letting yourself look at him. Shirt hanging loose off his shoulder, dark eyes tracking your every move. His lip was busted—probably from some deal gone sideways—but he hadn’t said a word about it. You crossed the room and sat on the bed beside him, not touching. Not yet.

The room was thick with unspoken things, and you weren’t sure which of you was waiting for the other to speak first. But then, the sound of a news broadcast on the motel’s small TV broke the silence.

Your father’s face appeared on the screen. His sharp jawline, his practiced smile—his polished, political self. The anchor was reading off a list of accomplishments, the latest being a speech he’d just delivered about the future of the city, about making it a safer place for families like yours. The kind of families that didn’t even know what real danger looked like. The kind of families that looked at your relationship with Jason and couldn’t even begin to comprehend the chaos behind closed doors.

Jason froze, jaw tightening. “Well. Look who’s preaching tonight.”

You stared at the screen. Your father stood at a podium, flanked by flags, the caption beneath reading STATE CRACKDOWN ON ORGANIZED CRIME ANNOUNCED. His words were sharp, clean: “We will not tolerate the poisoning of our streets. We will hunt down every last one of them.”

"Your father’s a real piece of work," Jason muttered, not even looking at the TV. His tone was flat, but there was a certain bite to it. A bitter edge you weren’t used to hearing from him. Jason had never hidden his disdain for people like your father—clean, untouchable, the kind of men who never had to get their hands dirty. But hearing him talk like that stung, even though you knew it was true.