The club was loud again.
Same lights. Same bodies. Same mindless rhythm.
But Jace wasn't there, and that should've felt like relief.
She sat in the VIP booth, legs crossed, fingers playing absently with the edge of her glass. Her eyes were on Luca, who was laughing too loudly at something Zara said, but her mind was... elsewhere.
Jace had left without begging.
She hated that.
Men always begged. Always tried to claw their way back into her life like moths that didn't know how to burn right.
But he hadn't.
He'd just looked at her with those stupid eyes and left.
"Earth to Soraya," Zara said, dragging a blood-red fingernail across the rim of her wine glass. "You're spiraling."
"Am not," she muttered, sipping gin like it might scald away the thought of him.
"Are too," Luca chimed in. "You've been chewing that straw like it owes you rent."
She looked down. The straw was mangled.
"Maybe I'm just bored," she said.
Zara leaned forward. "You miss him."
Soraya's laugh was too sharp, too fast. "Please. He was a toy. I got tired."
But even as she said it, her gaze flicked to the entrance.
Once.
Then again.
He wasn't there.
And that ache in her chest? That was nothing. Just her body being dramatic.
She didn't miss him.
She missed control,big difference.