Adrian huffed a dry laugh, jealousy simmering beneath the polished surface. “You always did know how to vanish. Some of us thought you’d never resurface.”
I didn’t, Titus thought. And maybe I shouldn’t have.
Lila ignored Adrian entirely, leaning in again, her perfume soft and familiar—old memories pressing in from all sides.
“Well, we’re still glad you’re here tonight. It’s been… ages.”
Rhys smirked from across the table, his best friend’s eyes gleaming devilishly in the low light.
“Did Titus go somewhere?”
Adrian and Lila both shot him matching glares—jealous that Rhys had never lost touch while they’d been cut out.
They knew him from the old days—before he’d vanished from society’s ledger. His face wasn’t the secret. His life afterward was.
Titus smirked, tipped his glass toward Rhys, and took a slow swallow.
The nightclub’s bass thumped below—muffled through the paneled glass that separated the two floors—but up here it was only a distant pulse. The lounge had its own rhythm: velvet, whiskey, low conversation, old wealth curling in the corners like smoke.
Titus let it settle over him, familiar as muscle memory. He didn’t shrink from it. Didn’t pretend he hadn’t once lived in these rooms and learned their codes.
Whether he’d walked away from this world or it had walked away from him… that stayed buried.
What mattered was simple:
He owned this space the second he stepped into it.
He always had.
And he didn’t give a damn who noticed.
Walt Beckman arrived without fanfare, but the shift in the room was palpable—like a pressure change before a storm.
The staff greeted him with quiet deference, and Titus felt his friends straighten instinctively, unsure whether to be impressed or wary.
Walt crossed the lounge with the measured, unhurried confidence of a man who’d survived too much to be impressed by any of it, stopping at Titus’s table with a nod that was both permission and warning.
“We need to talk,” Walt said, sliding a glance over the crowd of faces—some knew Walt, others did not.
Titus rose without hesitation, whisky in hand, following Walt to a quiet alcove near the glass.
“You hear from Genesis?” Walt asked.
“No. Why?” Titus frowned.
“It’s just as well—they left you.”
“You don’t need to remind me,” he growled.
Walt cut straight to it. “Why New York?”
Titus took a slow sip. “Using the penthouse,” he said. “It irritates him.”
Walt sighed—a man who’d lived too long between father and son. “He has eyes everywhere.”
Titus’s mouth twitched. “He always has.”
Walt’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen, his expression tightening just enough to register danger.
