Chapter 2 - The Aftershocks
Clarissa turned away before she lost the last shred of her equilibrium, walking back across the Persian rugs with her knees trembling like loose wire.
When she slid back into the sapphire booth, Samantha was staring at her with her mouth half-open, a look of profound, sputtering disbelief frozen on her carefully contoured face. Paige and Mallory were practically choking on their gin and tonics.
“You... you actually did it,” Samantha whispered, her voice pitching up an octave. “You kissed him? Do you have a death wish? Do you even know who that is?”
“No,” Clarissa said coolly, picking up her sparkling water and taking a slow, steady sip. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, but she kept her voice as flat as glass. “And I don't care.”
“That’s Julian Vance,” Paige hissed, leaning across the table with wide, terrified eyes. “My uncle works in municipal zoning downtown. He said the Vances own half the commercial real estate on the North Side and half the judges in Cook County. You don't just walk up and kiss Julian Vance, Clarissa. People like that... they don't play games.”
Clarissa didn't answer. She looked back toward the corner booth.
Julian was gone.
The table was empty, save for a damp crystal tumbler sitting in a pool of amber light. Only the two hulking men in black suits remained, scanning the room with cold, flat eyes.
As if sensing her gaze, one of the guards turned his head. He looked straight at Clarissa, gave a single, microscopic nod of his head, and then walked away, disappearing through a side exit marked Private.
The rest of the birthday dinner passed in a blur of nervous chatter. Samantha tried to recover her footing, making brittle jokes about how bold Clarissa had suddenly become, but the sting of the dare had completely inverted. Samantha no longer looked superior; she looked uneasy, as though she realized she had accidentally poked a sleeping bear with a very short stick.
By midnight, Clarissa was back in her Lincoln Park apartment.
She kicked off her heels, threw her purse onto the entryway table, and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the twinkling lights of Clark Street. She traced a finger over her bottom lip. It still felt warm, tingling with the phantom ghost of Julian Vance’s kiss.
Julian.
She laughed out loud, a nervous, breathless sound in the quiet apartment.
“You’re out of your mind, Clarissa,” she told her reflection in the dark glass. “You spend your life auditing tax evasion for multi-million-dollar corporations, and you go out on your birthday and flirt with a literal mob boss.”
May you like
She went to bed exhausted, certain that by morning, the whole episode would feel like a fever dream born of bad tequila and accumulated resentment.
She was wrong.
