Page 122 of Obey

This car is a coffin.

The tux chokes me as the collar digs into my throat. The shoulders too tight across my back.

My knee won’t stop bouncing against the floorboard as I think about what the next two hours will entail.

Crowds. Suits. Kissing ass all night.

I’d rather take a punch.

At least in a fight, I know the rules. Here, it’s all poison and daggers hidden under silk words.

I adjust my cuff links again, the fourth time in ten minutes. It doesn’t help. Nothing does. I’m wound tight, ready for a brawl in a room full of champagne-soaked jackals.

“Elias.”

My name, firm and familiar, cuts through the noise.

Nate’s hand covers mine, a warm weight that pins my restless fingers in place before I shred myself raw on the cuff link.

“Relax.” His voice is calm, laced with steel. “Ninety minutes, Eli. That’s all we need to put in, then we can leave.”

Easy for him to say. He thrives in this world, in the ice and calculation. Me? I don't belong here; this isn’t my terrain.

My jaw locks, but my knee stills. My lungs drag in one full breath. Then another.

“Wait 'til he sees Sloane in that dress,” Jace pipes up from the other side, grinning like he already knows exactly how the night’s going to go. “He’ll forget all about the tightwads throwing their status around.”

I glare at him. “You’ve seen it?”

His grin widens. Of course he has.

I tug once at my collar and decide I hate him a little.

By the time the car glides to a stop beneath a wall of glass and blinding lights, my stomach is twisted tight.

The valet opens the door, and cold air hits me hard enough to clear my head for half a second. Then the staring starts, and my shoulders lock.

“Ninety minutes,” Nate murmurs, falling into step beside me. “And then we go home.”

The ballroom swallows us whole. Marble floors, crystal chandeliers, the low hum of conversations punctuated by laughter that sounds too practiced. Every surface gleams under soft lighting, and the air smells like expensive perfume and money.

Nate moves through the room like he owns the deed to it. Crisp tux, hair neat, jaw set just loose enough to read as boredom. But I watch his eyes tick from face to face, the way a chess player reads a board. Every hand he shakes gets filed somewhere behind those calm eyes.

Jace is a different animal. A natural-born grifter, just the legal kind. All teeth and charm, slipping past people's defenses like he's known them for years. The wives lean in. The husbands laugh louder. By the time he's finished, they're convinced every idea was theirs to begin with. He makes them feel chosen, never realizing they're being played.

Me, I take up space wrong. The tattoos don’t help.

A woman in pearls catches herself mid-laugh when she sees me, and I soften my features the best I can, but it doesn’t matter.

“Stop looking like you’re about to break someone’s jaw,” Jace whispers, sliding a flute of champagne into my hand with practiced ease. “Drink this. Smile. Think about later.”

I take the glass, but don’t drink. My eyes scan the room again, inventorying exits, possible threats, the distance to get to them if something happens.

And maybe that’s what gnaws at me most: this distance, this careful act we put on in public. Like we’re carved into separate roles, when in reality I know the truth.

I know what it feels like when Jace is pressed between us, when Nate’s voice deepens into something less controlled, when all three of us stop pretending and just are.

But here, surrounded by crystal glasses and hollow laughter? I’m the stranger in the suit.