Deal with the Dark Don

The night in Alabama clung to Scarlett Boone like a wet shroud, its humidity thick with the aroma of faraway magnolias and rain-soaked asphalt. She ran down an alley in Birmingham, her sneakers scuffing the crumbling pavement that was covered in broken glass and cigarette stubs. The flash of a dying streetlamp caught her hurriedly braided auburn hair, illuminating her delicate face with flaming glints, her doe-like eyes piercing with desperation, and freckles dusting her cheeks like embers on light silk. Scarlett was a ghost in the gritty underbelly of the city at the age of twenty-three. Her hands were rough from working endless shifts as a diner, cleaning dishes and mopping floors, and her little frame was slender from missing countless meals. But to her childhood friend Ivy and the nurses who grabbed her crumpled cash for her mother Eleanor's cancer treatments, she was a quiet fighter, her heart forged in unrelenting sacrifice. To Birmingham's busy streets, she was invisible, a waitress barely making ends meet. In her world of limited resources, the diner's grease stuck to her skin and mixed with the subtle lavender soap she had taken from a motel.

With every euro flowed into the drugstore vials rattling in her shabby canvas bag, she ignored the hollow ache in her gut that grumbled. Eleanor's lifeline was those bottles, each one a victory over the illness destroying her mother's body. With a spark that pierced Scarlett's fatigue, Ivy's voice reverberated from their earlier break that day: "Crash that fancy masquerade with me, Scar." Have a little fun. What could possibly go wrong? For a night, you might even forget about the hospital. The memory caused Scarlett's lips to quiver, and her fingers clenched around a pilfered invitation she had discovered in the diner's lost-and-found box. In the dark light of the alley, the gold embossing glistened, offering a glimpse of a world of opulence and luxury that was far different from medical bills and past-due rent. Even if it was a reckless whim, she was unable to stop it.

She slipped into Ivy's borrowed black gown after ducking into a dark nook to change. The chilly, strange touch of the silk against her flesh made her feel both alive and exposed. It was like a lover's touch. She covered her eyes with a flimsy lace mask, concealing the weariness that was imprinted on her face. With its marble front glistening beneath lighting and the sound of violins and laughing reverberating into the muggy night, the Grand Belle Hotel rose before her like a cathedral of luxury. As Scarlett got closer to the entrance, her heart pounded in her chest like a drum. With a steady hand, she flashed the invitation, half expecting it to be rejected, but the doorman nodded her in with barely a glance.

With crystal chandeliers hanging like frozen waterfalls and light breaking across velvet draperies and polished marble floors, the ballroom was a fever dream of opulence. Intricately costumed guests whirled around the