2
The Watcher
It’s loud tonight. Not just the music, but everything. The scrape of the chairs, the clink of the glasses, the shrill laugh of someone trying too hard to pretend they’re not afraid of the news blaring from the TVs above the bar. The whole world’s cracking at the edges, and no one knows what to do except drink until their stupid fucking problems seem distant.
I’m moving fast. Pouring doubles, slinging bottles, pretending I don’t notice the way people are vibrating with something ugly under their skin. Dragana slides a tray past me with a wink. I smirk. She’s good at playing it cool. Me? I don’t have time for anything butactualcontrol.
What I do notice is the quiet. It slips in like a change in pressure. It’s as if someone has flipped the switch on the room’s energy and rewired it from underneath.
The VIP booth—the one that’s always empty—isn’t empty anymore.
He’s here. Shadowed. Still. The glass is sitting untouched in front of him. No entourage. No noise. Just…him. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. He just watches me as I’m trying to figure out who the hell he is. I narrow my eyes and say, “Who the hell is that?” Dragana leans in, setting a coaster down with more force than necessary.
“He’s no one.”
Annoyed at her lack of detail, I reply with a sarcastic tone. “Yeah, because a ‘no one’ would be sitting in the roped-off booth like he owns the building.”
She doesn’t laugh. That’s what gets my attention.
“That’s Riven, they call him a myth,” she says quietly. “Some say he’s the head of the Vescari syndicate. Others say he doesn’t exist at all until something bad’s about to happen.”
“Sounds like a bad movie pitch.”
Dragana glances over her shoulder, voice lower now. “Lux…last time he showed up in this city, three bars burned to the ground within a week, and then a body showed up in the bay missing its tongue.” She walks away like she didn’t just drop a horror story in my lap. I glance toward the booth again. He’s still watching.
A subtle third-party observer might have missed him entirely. Nothing about his posture demanded attention. Aside from the seasoned bartender, twitchy regulars, or the ones used to spotting trouble before it starts, no one else seemed to notice him. Lucky for them, because he was impossible to unsee. The air around him builds an unbearable pressure like a cold front crashing into the summer air.
The music changes. As it slows, I notice a strange beat pulses under the surface like a second heartbeat. Suddenly, a man shouts, breaking my thoughts. I turn just in time to see a guy in a cheap blazer shove his girlfriend. Not hard, but it’s just enough to make the surrounding tables freeze. She flinches. Her voice trembles. This fight is seconds from becoming something worse.
I’m already moving. “We don’t do that shit here,” I snap, sliding between them like I’ve done a hundred times before. My tone slices through the bar like a whip.
“Back. Up,” he sneers.
“You serious?”
“Dead serious.” This asshat decides to take a step toward me, his fist clenched when suddenly the lights start to flicker. Everything in the room goes still, like the oxygen is being sucked out of the room. I don’t even have to look to know he’s there.
He’s standing behind the man who has a clenched fist in the air and too much beer on his breath. The pressure is so exact, so sudden, the man doesn’t even have a chance to scream before I register what I’m hearing—the dry, hollow crack of bone breaking clean. He crumples to the ground, clutching his arm and howling like a wounded animal. The crowd stands still, watching us. It’s like they’re under glass. Like something ancient has wrapped the room in silence. And the man now standing still above him? Calm. Unbothered.
He doesn’t say a word. Just turns toward me and stares with piercing eyes, and for the first time, I see his face. Why is it wrecking me?
Perfect in a way that feels wrong. Pale skin. Sharp jaw. Hair that is as dark as a fresh bruise and styled within an inch of perfection. The kind of beauty that hurts to lookat. He is too sharp. Too clean. Too cold. It’s his eyes that hit me.
Eyes I’ve drawn. Eyes, I know.
Burning, piercing, impossible.
His gaze pins me like a blade to the wall. And then, before I can even breathe, let alone speak, he reaches up. His hand brushes a strand of hair from my face. Gentle. Deliberate. His fingers graze my temple, and everything in my body reacts like I’ve been hit with lightning.
Then—just like that—he’s gone.
The missing oxygen refills the room and the bar breathes again. Conversations restart. Someone laughs. The music swells. No one looks at the guy on the floor, or the man who dropped him. It’s like the moment never happened and I’m stuck here, frozen...
I sawhim.
I felthim.
I still see those eyes, every time I shut my own, staring right through me like they belonged to me long before I ever knew they existed. The rest of the shift is a blur. Dragana tries to ask what happened. I wave her off. I don’t have the words, not yet. Every time I close my eyes,I see that man’s face. Those fucking eyes. The precision in his movements. The way the crowd folded around him was like he’d always been there. And the way he touched me. Like he had every right to.
