TARA: CORRUPT ME

2| A Wild Night Begins

CORRUPT ME

I was moving with the song, having my own moment, when time just slipped away. I hadn't touched a drop — I never did at parties like this. If I got drunk, nobody would be able to drag me out of trouble. I liked being the one who caused trouble, thank you very much.

Then I felt it: a disgusting hand at my waist. Warm, clumsy, the kind of grab you don't forget. Without thinking, I slammed the glass in my hand straight into his head.

"Wooo—look who we got here!" I shouted, turning to face the guy who'd thought he could touch me. He staggered, holding his bleeding forehead, more shocked than hurt.

"Nerdy Rehaan, again?" I said, making a mock-innocent face, all accusation and attitude. The nickname fit—lanky, always trying to look clever, always getting too familiar with people who didn't want him near.

He cupped his head and tried to find words, but blood and embarrassment do that for you. "You—" he started, uselessly.

"Ouch. Don't you dare—" I cut him off. Voices popped up around us like popcorn. People were already forming a circle, phones glinting as they filmed, hungry for drama. Exactly as predicted.

"Tara, what did you do?" Riya hissed at my side, gripping my arm. Her voice had that half-panicked, half-amused note it always did when I crossed the line between entertaining and disastrous.

A redhead near the edge of the crowd lifted her phone higher for a better angle. "Hey, redhead—get a good shot or I'll give you a reason to delete it," I snapped, stepping forward so my warning landed between her and the camera. I wasn't bluffing.

The murmurs grew louder. Someone shouted for security. A waiter muttered under his breath about ruined glasses and ruined reputations. The manic energy of the crowd was a physical thing: phones raised, laughter, the sour smell of someone else's spilled drink.

Then the room shifted. The clamor dropped a notch as if someone had turned down the volume on the whole hall.

He walked through the crowd — not pushing, not making a show — and the sea of faces parted for him. He didn't hurry. He didn't shout. He simply moved with an authority that didn't ask permission and didn't need it. Up close, he looked older than his credentials hinted, like a man who had learned how to take control without ever needing to shout. He was wearing a as mask.

He paused by the circle and looked at Rehaan once, with a slow, cold calm that made Rehaan straighten like a puppet on a string. "You'll come with me," he said in a voice that left no room for argument.

Rehaan mumbled, eyes wide, and let himself be steered away. People followed with their eyes, phones still recording, but something about the way this stranger handled the whole thing — precise, almost surgical — made the crowd's excitement curdle into curiosity.

I watched him step back into the open space. For the first time since the party started, his gaze slid over to me. It was brief, measured, and it landed with the weight of something that had been looking for me. I felt, inexplicably, the heat of being seen — not the playful kind that made me grin, but a quiet, intense notice that nudged at the edge of my skin.