Page 39 of Forged

“Then let’s go,” he says, voice gravel and promise.

The older couple goes feral. The wife is chanting “CHAPEL! CHAPEL! CHAPEL!” while the husband slaps Lars on the back like he's sending him off to war.

We stumble away from the table, still kissing, still laughing, and headed straight into ruin.

I know I’m drunk.No, I know I’m gone.

The moment we spill out of the casino and into the heat, the Las Vegas night hits me like a fever, neon and noise crashing straight into my bloodstream. The Strip hums under my skin, inside my skull, and in my pulse. It feels like I swallowed electricity and Neomi is the fuse burning fast and bright in my chest.

With fingers threaded tight, I lock her hand in mine and refuse to let go. Not now, maybe not ever again.

She laughs—open and reckless—and it tears through places I sealed off years ago. I should be thinking about Chicago, about Maravilla and Falco closing ranks, about the fault lines in my world shifting under my feet.

Instead, all I can think is that I would burn this city to the ground if it meant she’d keep looking at me like that.

We hit the sidewalk still kissing between breaths, my hands in her hair, her body pressed to mine like we were built to collide. Cars streak past and music spills out of clubs. Drunk strangers shout congratulations or something filthier, but I barely see anything that isn’t her.

She pants against my mouth, lipstick smeared, eyes dark and wild. “Lars,” she whispers, like she’s naming a sin she intends to repeat.

“Yeah, Bella?” I taste tequila and heat and every poor decision waiting to happen.

“Marry me.”

Something deep in my chest fractures—and God help me, I like the way it feels. In this moment, it feels like she’s breaking me free of every past mistake I’ve lived through and guiding me toward something brighter. And all I can imagine is my ring on her finger.

I flag down a rideshare. The car barely stops before I pull her inside. Her thigh slides over mine, her dress riding up, and my vision goes black around the edges because I want her—against leather, against glass, against whatever will hold us upright.

The driver glances back. “Where to?”

I don’t look away from her mouth when I answer. “We want to get married.”

The driver laughs. “Do you have a license?”

Neomi shakes her head. “No.”

“That’s your first step. We’ll have to hurry, they close at midnight.”

Her breath catches, sharp and delighted. I drag my thumb across her lower lip, wiping away what’s left of her lipstick. Her eyes shine like I’m about to give her the world. Or destroy it. Hard to tell—but right now, I don’t care.

Vegas blurs past the windows. She curls into me, fingers sliding up my chest, brushing my open collar.

I know better than this. I know better than to let anyone this close. But the alcohol has stripped me down to instinct, and every instinct I have is screaming the same thing.

Jump.

She brushes her mouth against my jaw. “Fuck, Lars. This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I turn my head, my lips grazing hers. “You’re a menace.”

The driver stops in front of a building and promises to wait for us after I hand him a few hundred-dollar bills from my pocket. When we step inside, I find it difficult to adjust to the brightness of the fluorescent lighting in the Marriage Bureau. It’s government efficiency wrapped in twenty-four-hour chaos. People are everywhere, even at this hour of the night. We stumble through the process with IDs in hand, the clerk barely blinking at us as she issues the license.

“Good luck,” she says flatly, sliding it across the counter.

Neomi beams at me, and it hits me square in the chest.

Back in the car, license in hand, she holds it up between us, her eyes struggling to focus. “Your last name is Marchetti?”

“Yeah,” I say, steady despite the spin in my head. “It is.”