Page 37 of Sunrise (Monarch Club #3)

Knox

A Sleep Token song coaxes me awake. I stretch like a lazy cat and notice Vault isn’t in bed with us anymore.

Where the fuck did he go now? At least my girl is still with me.

Snuggling up against her, I kiss the back of her shoulder.

She suddenly shoots up, hair all tangled and half out of its tight ponytail.

Her lipstick is smeared on her mouth and eyes are bloodshot.

“Shit! The club is open!” She scrambles out of the low-profile bed, tripping over herself. I rush to help catch her from falling, only to get tangled in a towel that’s on the floor.

Sophie sees me fighting for my life with it and cackles with laughter. Bent over, with her hands on her knees, she can’t catch her breath. I’ve never heard a prettier sound in my life. Maybe I should trip and fall like an idiot more often?

She picks up all her things from the floor and gets dressed, laughing. “Oh my god, I have a side stitch.” She holds her ribs, still cracking up.

I eventually win the battle with the towel and wrap it around my waist. “Do you really have to leave?”

I’m pissed Vault has snuck out already .

“Afraid so, pup.”

It’s like waking from one dream to land in another. Only in this one, I’m lost and confused and out of place.

“Ryker said I could have the club until opening time, but then it’s business as usual.”

I’m not used to this woman. I always get “outside the club Sophie” who lingers until the next day and walks slowly away from me. Not this frantic dominatrix dashing around the room to get dressed and leave in a hurry.

“Hey.” I snag her arm to slow her down. “Chill for a minute.”

“I can’t.” She pulls out of my grip and struggles to get back into her dress. “Shit. I need the pasties.” On a hunt for nip covers, she abandons me in the middle of the room and my heart stops beating because Ryker suddenly storms in.

“I know!” she yells while sticking her circles back on her tits. “I’m coming.”

Ryker shuts the door and leans against it. “Are you two okay?”

“No,” I say the same time Sophie says, “Of course!”

He arches his brow at me. I want to punch that smug look off his face. How the fuck did I go from being on top of the world to shoved under a rug? Because that’s exactly how this feels.

It was a scene, Knox. Not real life .

The logic is there in my brain, but my heart and soul aren’t logical. I want this for real. For always.

They’re getting back to work . Vault’s gone already. Sophie’s dressed to kill, and she’ll be flogging someone new within an hour .

I’m going to be sick.

“Come with me,” Ryker says.

Head fucked and heartsick, I snag my jeans and shove them on, then grab my shirt and shoes. Without looking at Sophie, I leave the room with Ryker, getting smacked with the reality that I’m in an elite kink club where sex doesn’t have to include emotions, only indulgence.

I’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work for me. My heart is always on my sleeve, and I get emotionally attached to everything.

Keeping close to Ryker, my head stays down until we make it through the throng of members already enjoying what the club offers.

He holds the door for me to enter his office first and promptly shuts it behind us.

“Am I in trouble?”

“What are you, five?” Ryker sits behind his desk. “No, you’re not in trouble. The fuck is wrong with you, Knox?”

A lot, I guess. “Then why’d you bring me here?”

“Because I figured you’d want to see this.” He turns one of his monitors around. “Tara sent it to me this morning, but you were… occupied.”

I gawk at the article on his computer screen. There’s a picture of the Vinyl Club and another of the double purple doors that lead to Midnight Run.

“She told me a food critic came in.”

I nod, reading nothing but praise about my food. “Holy shit.” I read the review again. “I thought I ruined it.” My relief is immeasurable. “He liked the risotto and the wellington. The pastry must have not been soggy on the bottom.” I’m light as a cloud. “I didn’t fuck it up! ”

Ryker’s beams with pride at me. “Five stars.”

“Five stars.” My eyes are going to pop out of their sockets. Gripping my head, I gawk at Ry. “ Five fucking stars !” Fist bumping the air, I feel like a king. “Holy shit! I really thought that guy was…” I read the review again and scroll down to the bottom. “Wait.” I scroll back to the top.

The profile picture isn’t of the man named Max Born. In fact, I don’t recognize this dude at all. “Fuck me running.”

“Jesus, you’re giving me whiplash with your mood swings, man.”

Pointing at the picture, I scan the screen and find his name at the top of the article. “Doug Palmer.”

“Yeah. Doug fucking Palmer. He’s only one of the toughest critics in the industry, Knox. And you blew him away.”

“But it’s not Max Born.”

“Who cares?” He jerks back, annoyed at me. “What the hell is going on with you? You should be screaming from the rooftops about this.”

“Did Tara not tell you about the guy who came in?”

Now he’s tensing up. His entire body goes into feral mode. “What happened that I don’t fucking know about? Did he do something to Tara?”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, bro. He didn’t even notice her.”

That doesn’t make him relax in the slightest.

“He came in and we thought he was a food critic. Ordered most of the menu. But…” I proceed to tell him everything about that encounter. By the end, Ryker’s leaning back in this chair, arms crossed, and scowling. “I thought if this was really him, then my in stincts were wrong for once.”

Ryker spins the monitor back around and glowers at the photo.

“A win is a win, though, right?” I clap my hands and rub my palms together. “I still did good.”

“Yeah, Knox.” He’s not hyped anymore. “You still did good.”

But there’s still a problem , is what he’s not saying. I hear it loud and clear because my instincts are saying it, too.

“Does Sophie ever talk to you about her past?”

“No.” A snake coils in my belly. “Why?”

Ryker rubs his chin and stares at the screen again. “When she first started here, she wore a wig and colored contacts.”

“So?”

He shakes his head. “We have masks and anonymity tools in place, but… she was different back then. A very fast learner.”

I don’t like where this could be going.

“She would scare easily,” he says, and the snake in my belly rattles its tail. “She needed a lot of safety reassurance. Which we all gave her.”

We being Dmitri, Ryker, and Vault.

“She slept here a lot at first, too.” Ryker rubs the back of his neck. “And she finally got herself into a better headspace. Dumped all her energy into work, either at the research center, or the club, and has come a long fucking way.”

I’m so proud of her. Ryker is too, going by his tone. So where is he going with this?

“Over the past couple of years… right about the time she started fucking you and Alex… she began throwing herself into the club more and more. Like it’s an a ddiction. For her and Vault both, actually.”

I shrug. “I’m sure she stayed because he was always here and vice versa. His energy drink intake definitely increased tenfold once they got together.”

“You’re right.” He sighs. “She mentioned to Dmitri that she has a lot more nightmares now.”

I knew that about her already. “Do you think it’s because of Alex?”

“I don’t think so.” He stares at the computer again. “I don’t know what she’s going through or why. She refuses to tell me, and my imagination gets pretty fucking ugly about it. Tara’s tried to talk with her, but Soph’s tight lipped.”

Tell me about it . “On the nights she struggles most, she comes to me and spends the night.”

“And she never explains?”

“No. I also don’t push.”

“Someone’s hurt her in the past,” Ryker growls. “And her paranoia has amped up exponentially lately.”

He’s not wrong. Her past sub problem sits on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t tell him.

It’s not my secret to confess, and it really needs to be on Sophie to tell Ryker about it.

If she hooked up with an outside sub just after she’d just started at the Monarch Club, Ryker would be furious because she wouldn’t have known enough about BDSM safety protocol and would have put herself in danger.

Ryker takes his staff’s safety very seriously, both in and out of the club.

I love that about him.

What I don’t like is how suspicious he sounds about her mysterious past. So what if Sophie wore wigs and contacts when she first started at the Monarch. That could be for a multitude of reasons. And she’s a fast learner. That’s a plus, not a concern. Lots of people are quick to catch on to things.

There are also lots of reasons for her to have nightmares. Her past. Her present. Her stress levels…

Vault and I might be making it worse.

“I’m in love with her.” Dropping into a chair, I let that confession land like a bucket of paint splattering on the floor. “So is Vault.”

“You and he have cracked a lot of walls lately.”

“Yeah. We definitely have.” And it’s all thanks to Sophie.

Ryker takes a moment before speaking again. “Start cracking hers.”

Our gazes lock. My protective instincts crawl out of their cage, scenting the air. “How?”

“Figure it the fuck out, Knox.” Clicking some buttons on his computer, he spins the monitor around and my heart drops. “Figure it out fast before it’s too late.”

I bolt out of the room, leaving the live feed of Sophie screaming in the mirror of her dressing room playing soundlessly behind me.