Page 13 of Whiskey & Wreckage

The office door swings open without warning, because of course Nash doesn’t knock.

He freezes when he sees me grinning at my phone.

“Oh my God,” he says, slowly grinning. “You’resmiling. You’regiddy.”

“Get out.”

“Does she know you’re rich yet? Or is she still under the impression you’re just some whiskey-sipping bar dude?”

I grab a file and chuck it at his chest. “Out.”

He laughs all the way back down the hall.

I look back at my phone and re-read her message. Yeah. I’m in trouble.

I lock my phone and set it face-down, forcing myself to switch gears. The world doesn’t stop spinning just because some girl with sad eyes and good instincts cracked my armor.

I pull up the security brief Maya flagged earlier, a new client. High profile. Senator’s wife thinks her husband’s cheating. Or embezzling. Or both. She’s not sure. She just wants dirt. Enough to blow up his re-election campaign and take half his estate in the divorce.

I’ve seen it all before.

That’s what we do at Ashcroft Security & Risk Consulting. Not the armed meathead crap people expect. We’re surgical. Precise. A boutique firm for the filthy rich and morally bankrupt. Background checks, digital surveillance, asset tracing, counterespionage, high-profile bodyguard rotations. I founded it after leaving the Army and getting burned in more ways than one. By people, by trust, by… other things I don’t talk about anymore.

Most of our clients are men like Poppy’s ex, the type who think they’re untouchable because they have money and wear expensive suits. The same kind of man who’d cheat with his girlfriend’s sister and still expect sympathy when it blows up in his face.

My jaw tightens just thinking about it. Poppy deserved better. She still does.

I try to focus on the file, but my mind drifts again, this time to the way she looked in that bar: messy makeup, fiery eyes, full of broken pieces and still trying to stand tall. She’d looked at me like she wanted to fight the world and also collapse into it. It hit something I didn’t know was still alive inside me.

My laptop pings with an alert, our internal system’s facial recognition flagged an ID match on a target I’ve been tracking for weeks. A smuggler with a fake passport, last seen in Rome, now allegedly in New York.

My fingers fly across the keyboard, redirecting our field team to the hotel he’s currently holed up in. I shoot Maya a Slack message about it and she pings back instantly, already working her digital magic. No questions asked. We’ve done this dance a hundred times.

I’m good at what I do. Fast. Ruthless. Efficient.

But none of it, the million-dollar contracts, the classified clearance, the sprawling penthouse office, none of it clears thefog that settled in my head the second I saw Poppy slumped over that bar with whiskey on her breath and heartbreak in her bones.

I try not to think about how close I came to walking out of that bar last night and never looking back. And what I would've missed if I had.

Chapter Five

POPPY

I wakeup to sunlight spilling through the fancy-ass hotel curtains for the second morning in a row, and this time, I don’t just feel okay.

I feel… content.

No hangover. No heartbreak tantrum brewing in my chest. No need to brace myself for the next disaster. Just soft sheets, a cozy pillow, and that stupidly soothing lavender-lemon scent the hotel uses in the hallways. I stretch like a cat, fingers digging into the plush mattress, and let out a deep, bone-melting sigh.

This must be what it’s like to have peace. I could get used to it.

I sit up slowly, twisting my hair into a bun and padding barefoot across the room to rummage through the clothing bags Thomas somehow had delivered. I still haven’t wrapped my head around that, how he knew my sizes, or why he would go out of his way for me like this, but I’m not questioning the universe when it hands me clean clothes that fit perfectly.

I pull on a pair of high-waisted jeans and a soft blush tank that hugs all the right places. Throw on a touch of mascara and a swipe of tinted lip balm, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t look like a girl who got her heart shattered. I look likesomeone who's putting herself back together, and making damn good progress.

Downstairs, the lobby smells like espresso and orchids. I’m not even kidding. There are fresh flowers everywhere and a grand piano that probably costs more than my car. When I ask the concierge where I can get good coffee nearby, he doesn’t just give me directions, he walks me out the front doors, points down the block, and tells me to have a “lovely morning, Miss Whitaker” like I’m royalty or something.

I float down the sidewalk and into the cozy little coffee shop he recommended. It’s all exposed brick and indie music, warm lighting, and glass cases full of pastries I could cry over. I order a vanilla oat milk latte and grab a seat by the window, sinking into a worn leather chair like it was made for emotional recovery.

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