The air in the Banks' estate conservatory was thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and the cloying, metallic tang of too much expensive champagne. To the three hundred guests gathered for the Banks Foundation for Urban Recovery gala, the evening was a triumph of philanthropy. To Brenda Banks, it was a slow-motion car crash.
Brenda stood by a marble pillar, her fingers white-knuckled around the stem of a crystal flute. She wore a dress of shimmering emerald silk that cost more than a schoolteacher’s yearly salary, but beneath the fabric, her skin felt raw, like every nerve ending was exposed to a freezing wind.
Focus, Brenda, she told herself, the words a frantic mantra. Smile. Nod. Don't let the sweat break through the foundation.
It had been seventy-two hours since her last "dose." The "little green pills" her mother’s doctor prescribed for "nerves" had long since stopped being a medicine; they were a leash. Her vision blurred, the faces of the city’s elite melting into grotesque, laughing masks. The light from the chandeliers felt like needles pressing into her pupils.
"Brenda? You’re drifting again."
The voice was low, steady, and grounded. It was the only thing that could pull her back from the edge of a panic attack.
She turned to see Thomas Hardy. He didn't belong in a tuxedo; the broad set of his shoulders and the rugged, tired lines around his eyes shouted "Police Chief," no matter how much silk he wore. He stepped into her personal space, his hand gently finding the small of her back. His touch was warm—terrifyingly warm.
"Thomas," she managed, her voice a fragile glass shard. "I’m just... overwhelmed. It’s a big turnout."
Hardy’s eyes scanned her face with a professional intensity that made her heart skip. He didn't see a socialite; he saw a victim he had been trying to save for three years. He was the one who had found her in that flophouse on 4th Street. He was the one who had carried her to the hospital while she screamed his name.
"Your hands are shaking," he whispered, stepping closer to shield her from the view of the crowd. "Tell me you haven't. Tell me you’re still clean."
"I’m clean, Tom," she lied, the words tasting like ash. She was clean, technically, but the craving was a physical beast clawing at her stomach. "I just need some air. The garden."
"I’ll go with you," he insisted.
"No," she said, a bit too quickly. She forced a playful, flirtatious smile—the Brenda Banks mask. "If the Police Chief vanishes with the hostess, the gossip columnists will have a field day. Give me five minutes. I’ll meet you by the fountain."
She didn't wait for his answer. She slipped through the French doors and into the cool, damp embrace of the night.
The moment the door closed, the mask shattered. Brenda stumbled toward a stone bench, gasping for air. The withdrawal hit her in a wave—nausea, tremors, and that dark, hollow ache that told her a single pill would make the world beautiful again.
She reached into her silk clutch. Her fingers brushed against a small, velvet pouch. Inside wasn't a pill.
It was a translucent green veil.
Brenda looked back at the glowing windows of the ballroom. She saw Hardy standing there, looking out into the dark, his face etched with a worry that broke her heart. He loved a girl who didn't exist—a girl who needed a savior.
But Brenda didn't want a savior. She wanted to hurt the people who put those pills in her hand. She wanted to feel the rush that was more powerful than any drug: the adrenaline of the hunt.
She stood up, her tremors subsiding as a different kind of energy took hold. She slipped around the side of the conservatory toward the old carriage house. Hidden beneath the floorboards was a trunk containing a different kind of silk.
Ten minutes later, the socialite was gone.
A shadow moved along the high stone wall of the estate. She wore a form-fitting emerald suit that allowed for lethal movement, and a sheer green veil that turned her features into a haunting, ethereal blur.
In her mind, the craving for the drug was silenced by a new, singular focus. The local syndicate, the Vipers, were moving a fresh shipment of "Greens" through the docks tonight. They were the ones who fed the city’s addiction. They were the ones who owned the doctors.
Lady Luck drew a slim, silver rapier from its sheath, the moonlight dancing off the edge.
"Let's see," she whispered to the wind, her voice cold and hungry, "if the house still wins tonight."
She vanished into the trees, leaving behind the girl Hardy loved, and becoming the woman he was sworn to catch.
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