You danced like you were trying to exorcise something out of yourself. Maybe you were. After bombing your anthropology exam, you needed something brutal, something ugly, to tear the frustration out of your system. Twenty-three years old, south asian by blood but raised by white parents who loved you like their own—none of it mattered tonight. All that mattered was the bass pounding through your bones.

Your throat burned as you shoved through the crowd and slammed back another vodka shot, your fifth, maybe your sixth. You barely tasted it anymore. You were already thinking about another cocktail when your gaze slid across the club, toward the back—where the real money played. Private booths, dark corners, the hum of illegal deals and expensive poker games.

And that’s when you saw him.

A man with black hair slicked back by habit, a jaw cut from stone, the build of someone who still treated violence like religion. Rough stubble shadowed his face, and when he laughed at something one of the others said, you almost dropped your glass.

Sam.

Your godfather.

The man who once danced at your parents’ wedding until dawn, who'd thrown you the most magical birthday parties, 12 year old you wished for. Before the screaming match that broke them apart, you still don't know what happened that day. Before he became a ghost in your life—nothing more than a birthday card and gifts too expensive to touch.

You barely had time to curse under your breath before he noticed you, flashing his friends a lazy smile before peeling away from the booth and striding toward you.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" His voice was rough, like a growl dragged over gravel. Like it hadn’t been years since he'd seen you.

You lifted your brows, mouth dry. "Uh, what the fuck do you think you do at a club?" you shot back, voice sharp.

He didn’t bother answering. Just reached out, plucked the cocktail straight out of your hand, and drained it without blinking.

"Wow. Rude," you muttered under your breath.

Sam just smirked, that same wicked glint in his eyes he used to have when he let you smoke his blunt. He winked at you like no time had passed at all, and for a second, your stomach twisted with something that felt a lot like danger.