[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/260611/ec618e6b.png[/img] [color=#B77B89]_________________________________________________________[/color] [sup][color=#B77B89]_________________________________________________________[/color][/sup][/center] [indent][color=silver]Sienna had always liked Fridays. They asked something of her, but never more than she had to give. The beginning of the weekend had its own particular rhythm at the Velvet Room. Busier than Thursday, though not yet the controlled chaos of a Saturday - the kind of night where the bar filled steadily as the evening went on, the energy building in increments rather than arriving all at once at the door. She’d already made plenty of drinks - a pair of gin fizzes for the couple in the corner booth, something dark and complicated for a regular who liked to make her work for her tip, a round of beers for a group of University students who were definitely underage - when the man took the stool at the end of the bar. She hadn't seen him come in. That, more than anything else, was what caught her attention. She prided herself on knowing the room the moment someone entered it - the particular quality of awareness she'd spent years cultivating, the kind that let her clock a stranger before they'd fully crossed the threshold. She didn't know how she'd missed him. He simply was, suddenly, sitting at the end of her bar with his hands folded in front of him and an expression of mild, patient interest, as though he'd been there for some time and was simply waiting for her to notice. The brunette didn’t hesitate, or let her surprise show on her face, as she nimbly placed a cocktail napkin in front of him. [color=#b77b89]"What can I get you?"[/color] [color=#59861D]"Whatever's good,"[/color] he replied quickly. [color=#59861D]"Surprise me."[/color] She poured him something without thinking too hard about it - a habit she'd built over years of reading what people actually wanted rather than what they asked for - and set it on the napkin. He thanked her with a small, unremarkable smile and took a slow sip, and she moved on to the next order, and that should have been the end of it. It wasn't. Sienna felt him watching her work the bar for the better part of twenty minutes, not intrusively, not in any way she could have pointed to and called a problem. He was just present. Attentive. The particular quality of someone who had come in with a specific purpose and was taking his time getting to it. She knew him, somehow. That was the thing that wouldn't settle. Not his name - she was fairly certain she'd never heard his name. But something about the line of his jaw, the way he held his glass, the particular stillness of him when he wasn't actively doing anything at all. She had seen this man somewhere. Recently, she thought. The certainty of it sat in her chest like a word on the tip of her tongue, present and useless in equal measure. [color=#59861D]"Busy night,"[/color] he commented by way of invitation, glancing around the bar with the interest of someone trying to start a conversation rather than simply observing. [color=#59861D]"Nice place you’ve got here, Ms. Mercer."[/color] [color=#b77b89]"I try."[/color] Sienna stated, not disagreeing with him, but the way her name sounded coming from his lips felt wrong in a million different ways. [color=#59861D]"More than try, I'd say."[/color] He turned his glass slowly on the bar, the golden overhead lighting catching the amber liquid inside. [color=#59861D]“It’s the one room in this city where nobody picks a fight. People keep their heads down.”[/color] His gaze shifted, examining the booths along the wall, [color=#59861D]“Good business, a place like this. Keeps things smooth for the people who need them smooth."[/color] Sienna kept her expression exactly where it had been. [color=#b77b89]"I just pour drinks,"[/color] she replied. [color=#b77b89]"Whatever else happens in this room isn't really my concern."[/color] [color=#59861D]"No?"[/color] He took a slow sip, unhurried, his eyes never quite leaving hers even as he drank. [color=#59861D]"Funny. I'd have said that's exactly your concern. A [i]Gray[/i], running the one place in Calder where nobody asks what anybody else is."[/color] She didn't react but was instantly unsettled as he read her like a book. Two stools down, one of the university students laughed too loudly at something, and the ordinary noise of the room continued around them, oblivious. She was grateful for it without examining why. [color=#b77b89]"Plenty of people drink here,"[/color] she countered. [color=#b77b89]"Doesn't make their business mine."[/color] [color=#59861D]"Mm."[/color] He set the glass down, [color=#59861D]"You know, people are disappearing lately. Grays, mostly. You hear about that?"[/color] He asked it lightly, conversationally, the way someone might mention the weather. [color=#59861D]"Not to mention, there’s a lot of new product on the street. Rumor has it, it’s moving through here."[/color] Something in her chest went very still. [color=#b77b89]"I hear all kinds of things,"[/color] she responded, reaching for a cloth she didn't need, giving the counter in front of him more attention than it currently required. [color=#b77b89]"None of it's mine to repeat."[/color] [color=#59861D]"That's interesting,"[/color] he started, [color=#59861D]"because I heard something more specific than rumor. A casino, last night. A man with an English accent who walked away with rather a lot more than he sat down with. And a woman who helped him do it."[/color] He let his words settle, unhurried. [color=#59861D]"Quite the performance, from what I'm told."[/color] She didn't let anything cross her face. It cost her more than usual. [color=#b77b89]"I don't know what you're talking about."[/color] [color=#59861D]"No,"[/color] he agreed, with the same small, unremarkable smile. [color=#59861D]"I wouldn't expect you to. But it does raise a question."[/color] He turned his glass once, considering it, before leaning forward slightly, lowering his voice - not enough to seem secretive, just enough that it was clearly meant for her alone. [color=#59861D]"Here you are, every night, telling yourself this place stays out of things. And yet there you were, last night, very much in business that is not yours."[/color] His eyes held hers, frank and unblinking. [color=#59861D]"Makes a person wonder how neutral this 'box' of yours really is. Or whether it's just neutral when it's convenient."[/color] [color=#b77b89]"You're bluffing,"[/color] she whispered. [color=#b77b89]"You're here to see if I'll flinch."[/color] [color=#59861D]“You keep telling yourself that."[/color] He said it simply, without raising his voice, and something underneath the pleasant tone thinned just enough to show what was actually holding it together. [color=#59861D]"But you should know - that box only stays safe as long as everyone agrees it should. There are people watching this place who've started wondering whether it's still earning that agreement."[/color] She didn't move. [color=#b77b89]"Is that supposed to scare me?"[/color] [color=#59861D]"I’m just here to inform you."[/color] He turned the glass once more, unhurried. [color=#59861D]"This building. Your staff. The loft upstairs you think nobody's bothered to notice."[/color] He let that sit for exactly as long as it needed to. [color=#59861D]"None of it has to become anyone's problem. But the day you decide your conscience matters more than the arrangement, that changes. Quickly. And not in a way anyone would be able to undo for you."[/color] The room around them carried on, warm and oblivious, someone calling her name for another round two stools down. She didn't look away from him. [color=#b77b89]"Get out of my bar,"[/color] she stated, low and even, though her pulse had found a rhythm she didn't like at all. [color=#59861D]"I will."[/color] He left a folded bill beside his untouched drink and rose from the stool without hurry. [color=#59861D]"Think about the casino, Ms. Mercer. About what happened to the people at that table who stopped being useful."[/color] He smiled, small and unremarkable, the same one he'd worn the entire conversation. [color=#59861D]"Have a good night, now."[/color] He turned and disappeared into the thickening Friday crowd, swallowed easily by the same noise and warmth that had let him sit there, in plain sight, for fifteen minutes nobody else had noticed at all. Sienna watched the door close behind him and stood very still for a moment, a glass in her hand that she had been polishing without registering it. Marcus appeared at her elbow then, glancing toward the door. [color=#DDC67B]"Friend of yours?"[/color] [color=#b77b89]"No."[/color] she snapped. She set the glass down, hand shaky, and reached for the next order.[/color][/indent] [center][color=#B77B89]_________________________________________________________[/color] [sup][color=#B77B89]_________________________________________________________[/color][/sup][/center]