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“They must have brokered a deal as part of their exit,” I told him.

“Except other stakeholders in the organization made the same payment. People who are working there to this day.”

I didn’t have an explanation for that, as much as I wanted to.

The words haunted me all the way back to LA.

My parents weren’t criminals. It’s impossible.

They were decent people. Everything I’ve done is for them—the business I’ve built, the Ibiza club I’ve done everything to claim.

Not everything, a voice says.

I had a chance at it earlier in the summer.

My future in exchange for the club.

In some ways, I’ve already pledged it. But it felt different pledging myself to Christian’s daughter.

At least, it did once Raegan Madani barged into my life.

We haven’t talked much in the past forty-eight hours thanks to work and traveling. But when she called me from New York after I finished packing, the night turned into one I won’t soon forget.

Her touching herself, letting me watch, fucking getting off on me watching…

It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

I need to touch her. I’ve been rubbing myself raw since that night.

It’s not only her body I miss, it’s the snippy comments, the way she goes into a trance when she’s working hunched over her computer, the little sigh of contentedness when I pull her against me in the morning and she’s still asleep.

She’s scheduled to get back to LA today, too, and I have plans for her.

Unknown: Thought you’d be interested in this.

The text that comes in when I land at LAX comes with a photo. It’s taken from a distance, but the men in it are clearly visible. One in particular is familiar, and he’s the one that counts.

I head to my condo to shower and change—shirt only, no jacket.

On impulse, I grab some of the books I brought to LA as reminders of home, a few from my father’s collection and ones I’ve acquired since, and pack them into a bag I take down to my car.

On the way to the club, I text Rae to remind her I’m picking her up for dinner and she’s not leaving my bed for a week.

As I enter the warehouse, the gazes of the workmen flick toward me, then away.

Leni looks up from her phone on the couch of the office. “Your girlfriend is hot. Did you see the posts?”

I grab the phone out of her hands to find a video of Rae mixing. Not Little Queen, either, but my Raegan. She’s a goddess with straight dark hair, dark clothes, rimmed eyes that blaze with enough intensity to steal a man’s soul when she looks up.

She’s moving to the music. The crowd is in it with her. The headphones I bought her are around her neck, and I have a brief fantasy of locking them there to hold her in place while I fuck her until we’re both sweaty and sore.

I want it, but I also want the moments after, when I’d hold her so tight her breath fans my skin and her heart beats against mine.

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

The words have my gaze snapping to Leni’s. I could argue, but there’s as much sense lying to one of my best friends as there is lying to myself.

“Do you wish I wasn’t?”