Fractured

The First Hook

The first text came two days after that night.

Come to this address. Tonight. Don’t be late.

No greeting. No question mark. Just coordinates to another planet I didn’t know I wanted to visit until Nero opened the door.

The spa wasn’t the kind of place people like me just… wandered into. The lobby smelled like eucalyptus and money. Soft light pooled over marble floors. There was a woman behind the desk who looked at me like I’d walked in wearing a prison jumpsuit instead of my best dress.

Before I could say anything, Nero appeared from somewhere behind her. He wore black like it was his birthright, perfectly tailored, the fabric catching the light with every step.

He didn’t say hello. Just brushed his lips against my cheek in a move so smooth it made me forget the receptionist existed. “Open up” he said, gesturing towards my mouth. For reasons I can’t explain, I simply opened my mouth and let him slip an unknown substance in there.

It tasted sour. It didn’t help that there were 5 pills currently swirling in my mouth.

He handed me a bottle of water like he could read my mind.

“What was that?” I asked in between the gulps, not that knowing would have stopped me from taking them.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re late for your present.”

The “present” turned out to be an entire wing of the spa reserved just for us.

Steam curled from a massive private pool, the air thick and warm. Music pulsed low from hidden speakers, more vibration than sound.

“Birthday?” I asked, slipping my shoes off.

“Yours,” he said simply, even though it wasn’t.

“I didn’t...”

“You don’t have to. I’ll remember for you.”

Something in the way he said it made my chest ache.

We floated in the pool, glasses of champagne balanced on the ledge. He told me half-truths about his life; how he used to race cars, how he once lived in Nigeria for a year “for the culture shock.” "I like to make myself uncomfortable" he said. I didn’t believe all of it, but the way he spoke made me want to.

At one point, he reached out and traced a line down my shoulder. “You don’t relax,” he murmured.

“I’m relaxing now.”

“No,” he said. “You’re just waiting for the next thing to go wrong.”

I laughed, but it was too sharp. “And what’s going to go wrong with you?”

He didn’t answer. Just clinked his glass against mine and took a long drink.

After the pool, he led me into a dimly lit room where a massage table was covered in white linen. Two masseuses appeared, silent and professional, their hands working oil into my skin until every muscle felt like melted wax. Whatever Nero had given me had started to kick in at this point and I was sure the massage table was floating on water. I liked the feeling.

From the corner of my half-lidded gaze, I could see Nero watching me. Not in a creepy way, in a way that made me feel like I was the only thing he’d come here for.

It was heady. Dangerous.

Dinner was in a rooftop suite above the spa, the city spilling out in glittering lights beyond the glass. Nero ordered without looking at the menu, the kind of man who assumes his choices will always be the right ones.

Halfway through the second bottle of wine, I asked him why he’d brought me here.

He poured more into my glass before answering. “Because you’re not boring.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s everything.”

The night blurred after that. Back in the pool, laughter spilling into steam. The taste of champagne on his mouth. The cool press of marble beneath my back.

At some point, he said, “You think you can keep up with me?” and I said “Try me,” even though I wasn’t sure what I meant.

Even though part of me already knew I’d lose.

The drive back to his place was quiet. Nero’s hand rested on my thigh, his thumb tracing idle circles that set my nerves on fire. But his eyes stayed fixed on the road, his jaw tight in a way I hadn’t seen before.

“You’re quiet,” I said.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

He didn’t answer right away. “About whether you’re going to disappear.”

The question caught me off guard. “Do I seem like the disappearing type?”

“You seem like the type who runs when it gets too real.”

I wanted to argue, but the truth was… he wasn’t wrong.

We didn’t sleep much. The night was a loop of heat and silence, of his hands on my skin and his voice in my ear, low and rough. There was a part of me that wanted to stay wrapped in it forever — and another part that wanted to get dressed and run into the street before the sun came up.

When morning light finally crept through the blinds, Nero was already up, leaning against the window with a cigarette.

“You smoke in the morning?” I asked, pulling his sheet around me.

“I smoke when I want.”

I laughed softly, but something about the way he said it, the way he claimed space, air, time, made my stomach knot.

I told myself it was just the hangover.

Before I left, he kissed me once, hard enough to leave my lips tingling.

“Don’t answer your phone if you don’t want to,” he said. “But you will.”

It wasn’t a question.

And I hated that I already knew he was right.