Chapter 17 – Lydia - Velvet Rope
The room smells like crushed velvet and spilt champagne. That’s the first thing I notice.
The second is Drazen’s hand on the small of my back.
His touch hovers more than it holds. Even still, it’s a leaden weight. It’s a pointed gesture, like he wants everyone to think he owns the space between us, even if he hasn’t claimed it yet.
The Solstice Club is too upscale to be this dirty, but that’s the point. White marble floors, floor-to-ceiling windows rimmed with gold, sunlight streaming in like a lie. The top floor is reserved for private events, exactly the kind Drazen likes: masked with civility, rotted underneath.
There are six of them seated at the table. Foreign accents. Tailored suits. One of them has a scar running down the right side of his throat, the kind you don’t get unless someone really wanted to send a message.
I don’t sit. Drazen doesn’t offer me a chair.
Instead, he hooks two fingers in the waistband of my skirt and tugs me down—right onto his lap. Like a prop. Like I’m the trophy he gets for playing host to this cartel of gentlemen with blood under their fingernails.
I feel my spine lock, but I don’t move.
I won’t give him that.
One of them smirks. Another lifts a glass. “She’s the one you mentioned?”
Drazen hums deep in his chest. His fingers slide lower across my thigh. “She’s everything I didn’t say.”
They laugh. I don't.
I keep my expression carved from something they can't touch.
Across the room, posted near the exit like a shadow with a pulse, is Silas. Drazen's arrangement—security for meetings like this. He's supposed to stand there. Watch the door. Watch the guests. Not move unless there's a threat.
But his eyes aren't on the door.
They're on me.
Laser-focused, searing holes through my skin in a way that makes my pulse stumble. That heat isn't the lust the rest of these dogs pant with. It's different with him. Dangerous in a way I can't name.
I try not to shift under Drazen's hand, but I can feel the line being drawn in the space between us. Me and Silas. The tension isn't visible, yet it's so prevalent I'm surprised no one else notices.
“Drinks,” Drazen says, not to me, but loud enough for everyone to know who he’s speaking to. “Go on.”
I rise without speaking. On autopilot, I pick up the decanter, the tray of glasses. Walk the perimeter like I was born to serve. One of the men lifts his eyes to my chest, lingers there. I pour the scotch with hands that don’t shake.
They don’t get to see me break.
They can watch me pour, watch me obey, watch me play the part, because I’ve learned how to make obedience look like power.
When I reach Silas, I don’t offer him a glass.
I meet his gaze.
Hold it.
Then place a glass on the ledge beside him.
“Wrong crowd,” I murmur under my breath.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink.
Just mutters, “Wrong throne.”
And then I’m moving again, walking back to Drazen with the tray empty and my skin still humming like it’s trying to crawl off my bones.
He smirks when I sit again. But he doesn’t say anything.
Because he knows what I am when I’m quiet.
Dangerous.
He shifts, whispers something in Russian to the man at his right, and lifts a cigar to his mouth like he's bored now. Like the performance is over.
His men are laughing again. I catch something about a shipment rerouted through the docks, someone trying to undercut the pipeline. I pretend to listen. I nod when I’m supposed to.
Then he dismisses me with a tap on the hip.
“Go fix your lipstick.”
A few of them chuckle.
He’s letting me leave.
No. He’s daring me to.
I push out of his lap, walk toward the far end of the lounge where a hallway snakes around to the powder rooms. The light changes here, losing luster to the shadows.
Plush carpet deadens my steps. The walls hum with muffled sound from the floor below: bass, a woman’s laugh, the click of heels on marble.
I don’t make it to the mirror.
Because he’s already there.
Silas.
Standing in the corridor just around the corner, out of sight from the table.
Watching me like he never stopped.
I halt.
Not because I’m startled.
Because my body forgets, for half a second, what moving forward feels like when he’s this close.
I breathe in, breath catching involuntarily, just enough to feel the scrape of reality settle back into place.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say. “Drazen will notice.”
His eyes stay locked on mine. “Neither should you,” he counters gruffly.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
He steps closer. I can taste his cologne. “And I did?” he challenges.
A jagged pull grips my chest. I take one step back, barely enough to register.
“You don’t have to watch.”
His gaze drops—not to my lips, not to my chest—but to my wrist.
His hand lifts. Doesn’t reach. Instinct drags him forward before logic can pull him back.
Then he touches me. It’s just a one fingertip he drags, brushing the thinnest part of skin where the blood runs closest to the surface.
My pulse riots over the sensation, gooseflesh erupting across the expanse of my too-exposed skin. I forget how to breathe.
“Why?” I choke out.
It isn’t the first time I’ve asked him. It won’t be the last. He never really tells me, does he? Why can’t he stay away? Why is he taking these risks? Why does he keep toeing this line, never fully giving himself to me and never wholly depriving me either?
“Because I can’t not,” he exhales now, right before he steps back.
Not far… But it’s just enough to remind me where I am. Who’s behind me. What I’m wearing. What they saw.
“You shouldn’t let him touch you like that,” he says, voice like smoke across the carpet.
I tilt my head, fury burning up through my spine. “You think I let him?”
His mouth goes flat. That’s all.
But I see it.
He knows.
This isn’t about permission.
It’s about survival.
“He doesn’t deserve to put his hands on you,” Silas mutters.
I feel my heart slam against my ribs, but I don’t let it show. “He doesn’t deserve a lot of things,” I say. “But here we are.”
We stare at each other, with the kind of stare that doesn’t beg for answers. It demands surrender. One of us has to break.
It won’t be me.
So I turn.
Start walking.
His voice follows, softer now, but edged. “You’re not alone. That’s why I won’t look away.”
I don’t stop.
But I carry those words like knives hidden under my skin.
I round the corner and keep my face straight.
My pulse hasn't settled, as I suspect it won’t for a while. But the hallway swallows the heat in my cheeks before I step back into the light.
Drazen’s laugh is the first thing I hear.
It's theatrical. Dismissive. The kind that people copy because they think it’ll make them sound dangerous.
I cross the room, and his eyes catch mine before anything else.
He doesn’t stand. Doesn’t reach for me. Just pats his thigh, summoning me to return to him.
And I do. I sit. Whether I want to or not isn’t important, isn’t even part of the equation. The fact is: his mood is easier to manage when I don’t challenge it too soon.
His arm drapes along the circumference of my waist, his fingers settling in the crease of my hip. My stomach lurches. “Don’t let the mirrors fool you, gentlemen,” he says to the group. “The most dangerous reflections are the ones you think are real.”
They murmur. Someone lifts a glass.
I pretend to smile.
I must not sell it. Because Drazen’s hand shifts, until the subtle curl of his fingers against my shoulder. His thumb traces a single line along the tendon at the base of my neck.
Possessive. Measured.
His voice dips just for me. “That little stunt back there…”
I don’t turn my head. “What stunt?”
He laughs again. “The way he looked at you. The way you let him. He is chasing after you like you’re dangling a carrot.”
My hand finds the edge of the table. I hold it so I don’t say something that’ll get me killed. “He’s one of yours,” I murmur. “Maybe you should train him better.”
Drazen’s grip tightens. Just for a second.
Enough to make a point.
Then he lets go, leans forward, elbows on the table.
The conversation picks up again, but I don’t hear it. Not really.
Because that’s when I notice Silas is not at the bar, he didn’t move back to where he should be.
No longer watching.
Drazen turns to me, speaking around the noise. “I need you to stay after this.”
“For what?”
“A delivery. You’ll ride along.”
“What kind of delivery?”
His smile doesn’t touch his eyes. “The kind that doesn’t need asking about.”
I nod, slow. Measured. Like I have a choice.
Not much time passes before the men are rising to their feet, trading handshakes, clinks of glasses, covert utterances about territory and trust and loyalty. The business has shifted somewhere I’m not invited. I’m just the set piece again, until I’m needed.
Drazen stands. Adjusts his cuffs. Fixes me with a look like I’m a chess piece that’s wandered off-script.
“I’ll send Dom to get you when it’s time.”
And then he’s gone, walking out with his crew like this was all foreplay for something bloodier.
Only when the room finally empties do I dare to move, picking up the tray like I’m cleaning up. But I’m not. I’m scanning, eyes flicking toward the hallway where I saw Silas last.
He’s not there.
But when I turn toward the far stairwell, the one that leads to the rooftop level, I feel something shift. A presence. That’s when I spot him. He’s leaning against the frame of the exit door like he’s been waiting for hours, even though it’s only been minutes.
Our eyes lock.
Again.
And I realize something dangerous: He’s not trying to disappear anymore.
He’s waiting for me, this time.
He doesn’t say anything at first.
Just watches me approach with that same wired stillness that’s never just stillness. Like every molecule in him is asking for permission to erupt.
He’s not pretending anymore.
Not lurking in the edges of a room. Not pretending his eyes don’t find me first. Not hiding the storm curling behind his jawline.
I stop three feet away.
No words. Not yet.
Just… space. Buzzing. Loaded.