The private room was soundproofed. The roar of the club was muffled to a dull throb, like a heartbeat under floorboards.

The lighting was low, a hazy pink.

Three male models walked in. They smelled of coconut oil and desperation.

Zoe cheered. She pulled a stack of bills from her purse.

Model A walked up to Dylan. He locked eyes with her.

Dylan felt her stomach turn. It wasn't excitement. It was nausea.

Model B flexed his biceps.

Too stiff, Dylan thought. No power, just show.

Model C picked up a strawberry from the fruit platter. He moved to feed it to her.

Dylan turned her head sharply.

"Put it down," she said. Her voice was ice. "I have hands."

The model froze. He looked confused. He was used to women who wanted to be fed.

Zoe nudged her. "What is wrong with you? These are prime cuts."

"They are performing sexy," Dylan said, picking up her glass. "They aren't sexy."

She realized, with a sinking horror, that she had been ruined. Claudius was a monster, but he was a monster with presence. When he walked into a room, the air pressure changed. These men were just... furniture.

"Stop dancing," Dylan ordered. "Just... drink."

The models looked relieved. They sat down. They started talking.

It was worse.

They talked about protein shakes. They talked about their Instagram followers. They talked about leg day.

Dylan felt a void opening up inside her. It was a boredom so profound it felt like physical pain.

"I need air," she said.

She stood up and walked out of the room.

"Don't fall in love!" Zoe called out.

The hallway was empty. The air conditioning was blasting. Dylan leaned against the wall. She dug into her purse and pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims.

Claudius hated smoking. He said it was a "liability to longevity."

She lit one. The smoke filled her lungs, acrid and sharp.

Her phone vibrated.

It was a text from an unknown number.

A second later, the phone rang.

Jensen.

Dylan stared at the name. He must have used a network tracer to find her burner's location. She declined the call.

It rang again immediately.

Claudius Snyder.

The name pulsed on the screen.

Dylan held the cigarette between her fingers. Her hand shook, just once. She stared at the red button.

She took a drag. She pressed accept.

She didn't speak. She just breathed into the receiver.

"Where are you?" Claudius's voice was low. Dangerous.

Dylan blew a smoke ring into the air.

"Off-market," she rasped. "Looking for a new investment."

Dylan hung up. She crushed the cigarette into a crystal ashtray on a side table. The embers hissed and died.

She turned to go back to the room.

A laugh echoed down the corridor. A wet, sloppy sound.

"Well, well."

Quentin Sharpe stepped out of the shadows. He was holding a tumbler of whiskey. His tie was loose.

Dylan pulled the brim of her invisible hat down. She tried to walk past him.

"That voice," Quentin said, stepping in front of her. "Sounds like my dear cousin-in-law."

"Former," Dylan said. "Get out of my way, Sharpe."

Quentin grinned. It was a nasty expression. "So the rumors are true? Claudius finally liquidated his least profitable asset?"

Dylan didn't stop. "Move."

Quentin reached out. His hand, clammy and hot, grabbed her bare arm.

"Don't be rude, Dylan."

Dylan didn't think. Her body remembered the Krav Maga classes she took on Tuesday nights. It was a reflex, honed to deal with threats exactly like this one.

She clamped her hand over his wrist. She stepped in, using her hip as a fulcrum, and twisted.

Hard.

Quentin yelped. The whiskey splashed onto his shirt. His grip broke.

Dylan shoved him. He stumbled back against the wall.

She didn't wait. She turned and sprinted back to the VIP room, locking the door behind her.

In the hallway, Quentin rubbed his wrist. His face was purple with rage.

He pulled out his phone.

He snapped a picture of the closed door. Then he scrolled through his gallery. He found a blurry photo he had taken earlier of a woman in a backless jumpsuit entering the private suite. You could see the distinctive mole on her shoulder blade.

He dialed Claudius.

Claudius answered on the first ring. He had just been hung up on, he was not in a good mood.

"What?"

"Your ex-wife is in a private room at Elysium," Quentin said. His voice dripped with poison. "With three guys."

Claudius stopped breathing. The air in the car went stagnant.

"Are you sure?"

"I saw her," Quentin lied, embellishing the details. "I heard her, she's playing 'Taste the Dessert.' You know the one, They're getting ready for round two."

Crack.

The screen of Claudius's phone finally gave way under the pressure of his grip. A spiderweb of glass cut into his thumb.

He hung up.

Quentin looked at his phone and smirked. He thought he had just ruined Dylan's reputation.

He didn't realize he had just pulled the pin on a grenade.

Inside the room, Dylan leaned against the door, her heart was hammering against her ribs. Not from Quentin, from the call.

"What's wrong?" Zoe asked. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"I saw trash," Dylan said. "We need to accelerate this."

She grabbed a silk blindfold from the table.

"Get the game ready. I want to forget everything."

Zoe clapped her hands. She arranged the models.

Dylan tied the blindfold over her eyes. The world went black. Her other senses sharpened, the smell of the cheap cologne, The sound of Zoe's giggles.

She stood in the center of the room, waiting.

Claudius stared at the fractured phone screen, the spiderweb cracks distorting the image of the map. His reflection in the dark glass was fragmented, much like his current state of mind.

Hospital or Club?

Reason told him that he should go to the hospital, which is the cornerstone of the family.

But the image Quentin had painted-Dylan, his Dylan, in a room with other men-was a corrosive acid eating through his logic. It burned in his gut, a primal, possessive heat that defied all business sense. This wasn't jealousy. He told himself it wasn't jealousy. It was the fury of a CEO watching a critical, proprietary asset go rogue and risk total exposure. It was damage control. It was protecting the brand.

"Reroute," Claudius said, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating with suppressed violence.

Jensen, driving, looked in the mirror, his eyes widening slightly. "Sir? The hospital is-"

"Elysium," Claudius barked. "Now. We retrieve the asset before it compromises the entire operation."

Jensen slammed on the brakes. The heavy car lurched forward, the seatbelt locking tight against Claudius's chest. He spun the wheel, tires screeching as the Maybach pulled a violent U-turn across the double yellow lines, ignoring the blare of horns from oncoming traffic.

Jensen flipped a switch. A siren wailed, cutting through the traffic like a knife, clearing a path for the black beast of a car.

Claudius opened his iPad. He accessed the security schematics for Elysium. The Snyder Group owned forty percent of the holding company that owned the club. He watched the digital blueprints load, his finger hovering over the VIP sector.

He saw the hallway feed. He saw the closed door of the VIP suite. Two bouncers stood outside, arms crossed, looking bored.

He couldn't see inside. The camera feed for the room itself was blacked out.

The lack of data was maddening. Claudius gripped the edge of the tablet until his knuckles turned white. Unknown variables were unacceptable.

Claudius unbuttoned his collar. He felt like he was suffocating. The air in the car was perfectly climate-controlled, yet it felt thin, hot.

She was his wife. The papers weren't filed. The ink wasn't dry. Legally, morally, she was still his.

He remembered their wedding night. She had worn a backless dress then, too. She had been shy. Reserved. She had trembled when he touched her, her skin cool and soft under his fingertips.

And now? Now she was in a room with "pretty boys," playing games that Quentin Sharpe described with a lecherous sneer.

The car screeched to a halt at the back entrance of the club, the tires smoking against the asphalt.

The manager ran out, sweating, his cheap suit ill-fitting. "Mr. Snyder, we didn't expect-"

Claudius walked past him. He moved like a tank, unstoppable and lethal. The bass from the club thrummed in the pavement, vibrating up through the soles of his shoes.

"That room," the manager stammered, chasing him, struggling to keep up with Claudius's long, angry strides. "The client requested absolute privacy. We have a strict policy-"

Claudius stopped. He turned. His eyes were dead, void of any humanity, two chips of flint. The bouncers at the end of the hall saw him and instinctively took two steps back, lowering their eyes. They recognized a predator when they saw one.

"That client is my wife."

The manager turned pale, the blood draining from his face as if a plug had been pulled. He stepped back. He nodded frantically at the bouncers, who immediately unlocked the door and moved away from it, pressing themselves against the wall to avoid the coming storm.

Jensen followed, putting a finger to his lips, signaling absolute silence to the terrified staff.

Claudius reached the door. He could hear laughter inside. Music. The heavy thud of a beat that mocked his racing heart.

He didn't knock.

He pushed the handle down.