Cami: Driver’s coming back for the case. You don’t need to haul it across the city yourself.
Relief hits me so fast my knees feel weak. Carrying this thing through Manhattan would’ve made me look like a nervous drug mule—because I would be one. I still need to break down the lab—wipe surfaces, log the batch, and make sure nothing traceable stays behind. The warehouse smells like ethanol, steel, and ozone, while my head buzzes from chemistry and adrenaline.
Fifteen minutes later, the town car arrives. Same driver. Same unblinking professionalism.
He doesn’t speak, just lifts the case out of my hands with the careful confidence of someone who’d transported far worse. He clicks it into the trunk like it’s a violin instead of a felony.
“It will be delivered to Ms. Devereaux,” he says, then pauses. “I’ll return for you when you’re ready.”
Notif. When.
The trunk closes with a soft, final click, and just like that—my drug, my creation, my biggest mistake, or my only way out—is gone without me.
I stand on the curb for a moment after the car pulls away, cold wind sliding down my collar. I’m not going home. There isn’t time. And even if there was, Jersey feels impossibly far from what waits tonight.
Cami texts again.
Cami: Come to my place. We’ll get you ready.
I glance at the warehouse, then at the garment bag slung over my shoulder. I’d brought everything—dress, heels, and makeup—fully preparing to get ready here between stainless steel tables and chemical stains.
Me: I have all my stuff here. Just come get me on the way to the party.
Cami: Absolutely not. You’re not getting ready in a warehouse like a crime goblin. You’re coming to my place. The car is on the way back.
Of course.She couldn’t resist playing fairy godmother for her chemist-turned-sin-dealer. I huff out a breath, equal parts annoyed and grateful. I stroll inside and clean the last of the lab, trying to erase myself from the room, knowing the car would return soon.
The elevator glides so quietly it feels like it’s floating, while my stomach tightens, full of things I don’t want to name yet.Zephyra. The Order.The money I shouldn’t be taking, but can’t afford not to. Ella’s acceptance letter burning a hole through my skull. My hands smell faintly like ethanol, no matter how hard I scrub them.
Cami stands beside me like she owns the whole damn building. She was born on marble floors and raised on champagne bubbles.
Her arm hooks through mine, light and warm. “Breathe, Vi,” she murmurs, checking her reflection in the elevator’s mirrored walls. “You’re fine.”
I’m not fine.
Cami squeezes my hand once. “Showtime.”
The doors slide open, and I swear the temperature changes. Warm, sultry air rolls in like it’s alive, like the whole penthouse is breathing in my face. Music thrums through the floor—slow and deep; the kind that sinks into your bones and tells your body to sway before you even think about it.
I step out before I’m ready.Too late to back out now.
The penthouse is exactly what Cami promised—expensive and over-the-top. The kind of place you only see in magazines when you’re pretending you didn’t check the price tag first. Gold everywhere. Velvet cushions big enough to drown in. A chandelier that probably costs more than everything I own combined.
But that’s not what makes my stomach flip.
It’s the way the room is already coming apart at the seams.
People aren’t mingling. They’retouching.Not coy, drunk flirting. Not party-cute kissy faces for Instagram.No. This is raw. This is need.
A man has a woman pinned to the wall near the bar, his hand shoved under her dress like he’s starving for the heat between her thighs. She arches into him, her mouth open as a helpless sound slips out even though half the room can hear her.
Two women press together near the balcony door, fingers hooking in each other’s hair as their lips slide across each other’s throats like they’re worshipping instead ofkissing.
In the middle of the room, there is a couple on the chaise.God.
A woman lies across it, her back arching over the plush cushion while her dress rises high enough that there’s no mystery left. The man with her is on his knees between her legs, one hand gripping the inside of her thigh, and the other teasing slow, steady circles over her bare, slick center like he’s coaxing every sound out of her one by one.
She’s trembling, panting, her heels digging into his shoulders as if she can’t decide whether to pull him closer or push him down harder. He kisses a path up her stomach, dragging his mouth along her skin, and she cries out—sharp and shaking—her whole body tightening like something inside her just snapped.
