Page 6

She didn’t have a family history that came with armed guards, a dead mother, and money no bank should’ve accepted without asking questions.

Vesper belonged only to me.

That’s why I chose the name. It sounded expensive, vaguely dangerous, and just unfamiliar enough that men remembered it without being able to place it. It also meant evening, which seemed fitting.

Alessia handled day-to-day things.

Vesper came to life after dark.

I looked around, taking stock of what was happening around the club. Nocturne unfolded around me in three levels of black glass, midnight-blue velvet, and polished brass. The main stage sat below in a shallow circle of amber light, surrounded by tables positioned just far enough apart that every man believed his evening was private. Smoked mirrors lined the columns and reflected bodies in broken pieces—an arm, a jeweled heel, a flash of a smile—so the entire club seemed larger and darker than it was.

The VIP floor occupied the mezzanine, screened from the main room by smoked glass and thin metal latticework. Up there, the music was softer, and the bottles became more expensive. Men spoke more freely when they could look down on everyone else.

Literally and otherwise.

The Morozovs had acquired Nocturne six weeks earlier through a hospitality company with enough layers to make the ownership technically boring. I knew their name anyway. Anyone raised around organized crime learned which surnames to remember, even if her grandparents tried their hardest to pretend those families didn’t exist.

I knew who the Morozovs were. They were a Russian family from Boston, powerful enough that the former owner stopped complaining about the sale the moment the ink dried.

I didn’t particularly care who owned the building as long as my paycheck cleared and the rules were enforced. So far, the new ownership had improved both. Security had doubled. Cameras covered the blind spots the old management had ignored. A customer who grabbed one of the dancers by the throat had been removed so efficiently that his feet barely touched the stairs. The next night, an apology and a five-thousand-dollar envelope arrived for the dancer.

No one said who had sent it.

No one had to.

As I crossed the floor, Celeste caught my wrist. Her stage makeup was flawless, but her expression was panicked.

“Table fourteen is accusing me of stealing a watch.”

I glanced toward the booth. A red-faced man in a blue suit was standing beside the table while two of his friends searched beneath the velvet cushions. One of the new security guards had already moved closer, though he hadn’t intervened yet.

“Did you take it?”

Celeste looked insulted. “No! Fuck!”

“I had to ask.”

“You really didn’t.”

“You’d be surprised,” I sighed.

I moved toward the table before the situation could escalate. The man turned as I approached, his expression shifting when he recognized me.

“Vesper,” he spat. “Your girl stole my watch.”

His face was dark with fury. He was drunk enough to be offended and sober enough to understand that raising his voice on the Morozovs’ VIP floor was a bad idea.

“It was on my wrist ten minutes ago,” he snapped. “Now it’s gone.”

I looked at the table where sat three glasses, a bottle of vodka, a silver diabolo ice bucket, two phones, a room key, and his jacket crumpled beside him, one sleeve turned inside out. The bucket had been moved recently. Condensation made a wet ring across the tabletop, but there was a clean crescent near the edge where something had rested beneath it.

I lifted the bucket and found the watch beneath it.

For a second, no one said anything. Then one of his friends coughed into his fist to hide a laugh.

I picked up the watch and held it out. “You set the bucket on it.”

The man took it from me, the red spreading from his face to his neck.