It started with a stare.
Every Friday night, Celeste worked the bar at Velvet Cellar. Dark velvet walls, smoky air, faceless luxury. The kind of place where no one asked questions, and everyone paid to be unseen. She wore tight black dresses with slits up to her thighs, heels that clicked against marble, and a crimson lipstick that made men stare. All of them looked at her. Most didn’t bother hiding it.
But he watched her differently.
He always sat in the same booth — last on the right, half-shrouded in shadow, with a bourbon he never really drank. Black mask, black suit, black gloves. She never saw his face. But she felt his eyes.
Every movement, every step, every sway of her hips, she knew he saw it.
For three weeks he didn’t speak.
And she hated how much it thrilled her.
He was t
