The private terrace behind the VIP section existed for exactly this reason: even in places built for relentless hedonism, sometimes the only thing left to do is fall apart in private.
Low leather daybed curved like an invitation. Muted amber lighting that didn't try to compete with the city sprawl below. Bass from the club inside reduced to a distant, muffled heartbeat pulsing through smoked glass walls.
Downtown Paradise glittered far beneath them—jewellery spilled across black velvet, indifferent to the small human wreckage happening twenty floors up.
Sierra, Maddie, and Delilah sat on the curved bench ten feet away.
Three girls. Three different kinds of silence.
They leaned forward in identical postures—chins in fists, elbows on knees, eyes locked on the scene with the helpless, gut-punched focus of women watching someone they loved be held together by hands that weren't theirs.
The sadness couldn't be masked.
