If Still

I've worked the floor long enough to know when someone doesn't belong.

New York is loud. Honest. Brutal if you can't keep up.

So when she walked into my bar and introduced herself to be "Alexandra Brooke," - I knew two things immediately:

One, she was lying.

Two, she was running from something big.

I've seen heiresses before. Socialites. Women who wear money like perfume.

She wore silence like armor.

Too refined.
Too controlled.
Too careful with her words - like every sentence had been practiced in four different languages before it left her mouth.

She says she's from nowhere special.

But I've watched the way she holds a wine glass.
The way British slips into her vowels when she's tired.
The way she stands like someone who's never had to slouch for survival.

I don't know her real name.

I don't know why a woman with eyes like that - amber-brown, guarded, carrying centuries of expectation - is hiding in NYC, sleeping in the spare room of my loft.

But I know this:

She's not just a anyone ordinary.

She's a storm disguised as stillness.

And whoever she's running from?

They haven't met me yet.

-

My name is Noah Thorne.

Queens born. Floor manager at Hightide. Loyal to Brian Garcia like he's blood. I fix problems. I protect what's mine. I don't play status games, and I don't bow to empires.

But this woman?

She's different.

She looks like she was raised in palaces and trained not to flinch. Like she's been sculpted into something priceless and put behind glass.

I see cracks in the marble.

They call her the Golden Bird.

They just forgot something.

Cages break.

And when they do-

I'll be right there when she learns how to fly.