Page 3

When Maya calls last call, I’m both relieved and disappointed. The stranger and his companions settle their tab—a number that makes my eyes widen when I catch a glimpse of the receipt—and file toward the exit. I busy myself with closing duties, wiping down tables and stacking chairs, while trying unsuccessfully not to watch him leave.
At the door, he pauses and turns back. Our gazes meet across the room, and for a moment, everything else fades away. It’s just him and me and the strange electricity that’s been crackling between us all night.
Then he’s gone, and I’m left standing in the middle of an emptying nightclub, wondering if I imagined the whole thing.
“Earth to Sabrina.” Jessie appears at my elbow, her own closing duties finished. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just tired,” I lie, stacking the last of the chairs onto a table. “Long night.”
“Carter giving you trouble again?”
I consider telling her about the incident in the hallway, but something stops me. Maybe it’s the memory of warm fingers on my wrist, or the way the stranger looked at me like he could see straight through to my soul. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
She studies my face for a moment, clearly not buying it, but she doesn’t push. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’ll drive you home.”
As we walk toward the employee exit, I worry that tonight changed something. I’m concerned the man in black didn’t justintervene in a bad situation but set something in motion that I’m not prepared to handle. It’s a paranoid thought that I can’t dispel.
I tell myself I’m being dramatic. He was just another wealthy customer, who happened to be in the right place at the right time. The intensity I felt was just adrenaline from the confrontation with Carter, but as Jessie’s car pulls away from Haus Modesto, I look in the side mirror, half-expecting to see a black SUV following us into the night.
There’s nothing there except empty streets and the distant glow of city lights.
It still feels like he’s watching me somehow. The hollow ache in the bottom of my stomach tells me whatever this is, it’s far from over.
Back at the apartment, I kick off my heels with a groan of relief and collapse onto our secondhand couch. Jessie disappears into the kitchen, returning with two glasses of wine. It’s just cheap stuff from the corner store, but it does the job.
“Okay, spill,” she says, settling beside me and tucking her legs under her. “And don’t tell me it was just Carter being his usual creepy self. You’ve been weird all night.”
I take a sip of wine, buying myself time. How do I explain the way my skin felt electric every time his gaze found me? How do I describe the way my pulse jumped when he touched my wrist, or the strange certainty that he knows something about me that I don’t even know myself?
“There was this guy,” I finally say. “At table seven. He... intervened when Carter got handsy.”
“Good. It’s about time someone put that asshole in his place.” Jessie’s expression darkens. “What did he do?”
“Nothing violent. He just told him to back off.” I run my finger around the rim of my wine glass. “There was something about him and the way he looked at me, like he was...”
When I don’t finish, she prompts, “Like he was what?”
“Like he was waiting for me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Waiting for you? Sabrina, you’ve never seen this guy before in your life, right?”
“Right. That’s what makes it so strange.” I lean back against the couch cushions, closing my eyes. “Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe he was just being a decent human being.”
Even as I say it, I know instinctively that’s not the whole truth. Decent human beings don’t claim ownership of strangers. They don’t look at you like they can see every secret you’ve ever kept. They don’t make you want to follow them into the dark.
2
Nikandr
Ihadn’t intended to act tonight. The plan was simple observation and a quiet assessment of the rumor that had reached my ears three weeks ago through carefully cultivated channels. The woman who vanished with Vadim Morozov’s secrets, who may have helped orchestrate my brother’s murder ten years ago, had resurfaced.
I expected shadows and whispers and carefully gathered intelligence that would lead me to her hideout or safe house. I didn’t expect to find her here, in this city, working the floor of an upscale nightclub like a goddess pretending to be ordinary.
But it’s her. Every detail aligns perfectly with the description burned into my memory of the face that launched a thousand betrayals, the voice that could convince saints to sin, and the way men orbit around her like she’s a gravity well they can’t escape. Even now, watching her weave between tables with practiced grace, I see the effect she has on every male in her vicinity.
Irina Volkov. I’ve never seen her prior to tonight, but it has to be her.
We’re at another club now, though. It’s open later, and my night tend to go all the way until morning.