Danger.
That was what Kiki had said earlier—before his brain appeared to have short-circuited.
How the hell could he forget kissing her?
No—I didn’t forget.Somehow the memory was gone. Scrubbed clean. Like it had been… erased.
His jaw was clenched so tight that a muscle in it twitched.
She had kissed him.
Warned him.
Pushed him away.
And now she was at his club while he stood in her apartment feeling like a man who had just stepped off the edge of a cliff and realized too late that there was no ground beneath him.
He crossed the room, his footsteps heavy.
He needed answers.
And he’d start with the two men across the hall.
The bass fromThe Rocksnightclub thudded across the pavement like a living heartbeat, rattling the soles of her boots. Even from across the street, Kiki felt it—that chaotic cocktail of lust, adrenaline, and greed pressing against her shields, testing for cracks. Her palms were already damp. She rubbed them along the thighs of her jeans and closed her eyes.
Breathe in. Hold. Release.
She had to be calm. Focused.
Tonight wasn’t about emotion. It was survival.
With her spine straight and her face emotionless, she crossed the street, slipping past honking cabs and groups of partygoers dressed in glitter and hungry for excitement. The line snaked around the corner, an amalgamation of heels, cologne, sequins, and desperation. The bouncer at the front looked like a boulder in a suit, scowling at the crowd. As Kiki approached, she sent the softest nudge—a whisper of thought sharpened into command.
Let me in.
His eyes glazed for half a heartbeat, then he stepped aside without a word.
“Hey!” someone shouted behind her. “What the hell?—?!”
Kiki didn’t look back.
Inside, the air hit her like a wall—humid, electric, and charged with pheromones, smoke from the fog machines, and the beat of bodies grinding to rhythmic music and the deeper pulse of life that no one could hear but everyone obeyed. Lights pulsed red, violet, and gold, painting the room in bursts of color like a dream on the edge of a nightmare.
God, it was loud.
Not just the music, but the minds. The emotions. The desires.
They clawed at her shields—hungry, invasive, pressing to feed.
A shudder of distress ran through her. She gritted her teeth against the nausea and kept walking, hugging the wall as the lights and shadows crashed into her by turns like two dimensions splashing into her skin.
She gave another push to the hostess at the inner velvet checkpoint. The woman blinked, smiled brightly, and waved her in as if Kiki were her best friend. The woman didn’t even scan her. Kiki offered a faint nod and kept moving.
Her destination was upstairs.
The VIPlounge.
Where she’d sent Nikos.
