The Velvet Room didn't smell like perfume.
It smelled like desperation.
Powdered sweetness and broken dreams.
Men watched the dancers as if they owned them. They didn't. Mara wasn't owned. She moved like a challenge—a dare.
Her heels struck the stage like knives, and every sway of her hips looked less like seduction and more like rebellion. She didn't dance for them.
She danced to spit in their faces.
Tonight, a new pair of eyes followed her. They didn't hunger. They assessed. They calculated.
Luciano Varetti.
The city's phantom king.
He sat too still for a man in a nightclub. His posture, his silence, his unimpressed expression—it all warned:
This one isn't here for pleasure.
And Mara knew she should be afraid.
Instead, she smiled at him—slow, mocking, dangerous.
The kind of smile that said:
> I'm not scared of monsters.
For a second, she thought she saw amusement flicker in his eyes. Not lust. Something worse.
Interest.
---
Chapter Two: The Boss's Game
Backstage, dancers laughed, snapped wigs off, complained about tips. Mara wiped glitter off her throat like it was blood.
She didn't belong here long. Just enough to survive. Just enough to run again.
The manager burst through the dressing room doors, stressed and sweating.
"Mara—someone requested you. Private lounge. Triple price. No touching. Don't mess this up, okay?"
She knew who.
"You should let someone else go," she answered, calm but sharp.
"Nobody else was asked." He swallowed. "He was very clear."
Yes. Luciano always was.
Mara applied her lipstick again, crimson like a threat. She went to him because refusing was louder than accepting.
But when she entered the private room, the temperature changed.
He didn't look at her like a fantasy.
He looked at her like a problem.
"Mara," he said, testing the name like a weapon.
"You shouldn't be here."
"You shouldn't either," she replied.
He stared at her, eyes dark and slow. "When did you start hiding in velvet?"
She stiffened. "I'm not hiding."
"Everyone who comes here is."
She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. "Do you come here to hide too?"
"Me?" His voice lowered, controlled. "I don't hide. I hunt."
He let the words sink in. Mara's pulse tightened, but she didn't step back.
"What do you want from me?" she asked.
He stood, not closing the distance—just existing, and that was enough to feel like he was everywhere.
"A warning," he said. "Leave this city. Tonight."
Mara's laugh was soft and lethal. "You think I take orders from you?"
"No," he replied. "You take orders from whoever you're running from. And they've found you."
Her breath froze, but her voice didn't.
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
His gaze sharpened, amused by her lie. "Then why did you change your name?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't.
Luciano stepped closer, not touching her, just letting his presence pressure her like a hand around her throat.
"I don't care who you are," he said. "But someone dangerous does. And they don't want you alive."
Her heart pounded—or maybe that was fury.
"You think you can scare me?"
"If I wanted to scare you," he whispered, voice low and precise, "you wouldn't be breathing."
She swallowed. "So this is protection?"
"No," he said. "This is a debt. You owe me now. And I always collect."
---