Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kira
I’m halfway under the bed with my arm stretched so far that my shoulder is pressed against the floorboards, my hair falling into my face, and the only thing I hear is my own annoyed exhale echoing in the small space, when the door swings open.
I’m already frustrated, already sweating a little, already mentally retracing every step I took this morning, so it takes me a second to register the way the air shifts when he steps into the room.
“Kira,” Artyom says, and the sound of his voice is enough to make my elbow slip against the floor, but I keep reaching, fingers brushing against dust.
“Not now,” I mumble, pulling back and sitting upright, brushing hair out of my eyes as I scan the room again, my gaze flicking from the nightstand to the dresser to the suitcase I just emptied on the floor.
He closes the door behind him and walks farther inside, his eyes following the trail of clothes, the open drawers, the flipped blanket, and the fact that I’m kneeling in the middle of it all like I’m trying to summon chaos.
“We have to leave,” he says, calm but firm, like he expects me to get up immediately.
“I figured,” I say, already crawling toward the dresser. “But I can’t go until I find it.”
“What,” he says, the word long and flat, “is it?”
“My hair clip,” I mutter as I circle to the other side of the bed, pushing the blanket aside with my knee. “The little gold one, the one shaped like a leaf. I put it somewhere this morning and now it’s nowhere, and I’m not going without it.”
There’s a brief silence, the kind where I know he’s staring at me, probably judging me, probably thinking this is ridiculous. Then he exhales, slow and deep, and I hear him step farther into the room until he’s close enough that his voice drops naturally, softening without him meaning to.
“Kira,” he says again, and this time my name sounds different coming out of his mouth, lower and warmer, like he’s trying not to smile even though he absolutely would deny it. “It’s a hair clip. I will buy you a million new ones.”
“I need this one,” I say, refusing to look at him because my face feels warm already. “And I’m not walking out there looking like I just woke up in an alley.”
“You don’t look like—”
“I’m not leaving until I find it,” I repeat, firmer this time, meeting his eyes as I push another pile of clothes aside, and something about the way he watches me with his head tilted slightly, lips pressed together like he’s trying to decode my brain, makes my chest do something stupid and light.
Then, he sighs, rolls up his sleeves, and kneels beside me. And just like that, the mood shifts.
He starts looking around without asking where to start, moving things carefully instead of impatiently, lifting the corner of the mattress with one hand while sliding the other underneath, checking behind the pillows, glancing under the bed frame, opening the wardrobe and rummaging through the small drawer where I keep my jewelry.
He’s quiet, but the silence is warm, oddly peaceful, almost domestic in a way that makes me feel something in my chest unclench.
We’re on the floor together, side by side, both of us searching for something as trivial as a hair clip, and somehow it feels like the softest moment we’ve had so far.
Artyom glances at me when I reach behind the nightstand and hit my elbow again. “You’re going to bruise yourself for a piece of metal,” he murmurs, shifting closer so he can move the nightstand with one arm and gesture for me to look behind it properly.
“It’s not just metal,” I say, leaning in and brushing dust aside. “It’s pretty.”
“That’s your criteria?” he asks, and there’s the smallest curve in the corner of his mouth.
“For a hairclip, it is,” I say, trying not to smile back.
He shakes his head and stands, brushing off his hands before crossing the room. I watch him move, and something about seeing him like this, quietly helping me search for something unimportant, makes me feel warm all over, like the tension from breakfast is melting into something softer.
“Check your bag again,” he says, opening the zipper without waiting for permission. “People always say they looked everywhere, and it’s always the first place they think it isn’t.”
“I did,” I say.
He ignores me completely, pushing things aside, lifting fabric, and then—
I see the moment he finds it because his hand slows, his fingers closing around something small and gold. He pulls it out and holds it between his fingers, the little leaf catching the light as he studies it briefly, then looks at me.
“You mean this?” he says, smiling now, real and warm and almost teasing.
My stomach flips.
“Where was it?” I ask, standing too quickly.
“Bottom of the bag,” he says. “Exactly where you didn’t look.”
“I did—”
“You didn’t.”
I cross the room, snatch it from his hand, and he lets me, his fingers brushing mine, and I feel the contact travel up my arm.
For a second too long, we just stand there, close enough that I can feel his breath, close enough that if I stepped toward him I’d be in his space, in his chest, in his arms.
I look away first.
He clears his throat lightly. “We need to go. I have some business to conduct and I don’t want you out of my sight after last night.”
I pin the clip into my hair, my fingers trembling just enough for me to hope he doesn’t notice, but he’s watching me with that same unreadable expression, something almost soft underneath the hard lines of his face.
“Calina and Milana?” I ask.
“Not coming,” he says immediately. “There’s no way in hell those two are stepping foot in this place.”
I blink. “What place?”
“You’ll see,” he says, already opening the door.
And just like that, my stomach drops.
We leave the hotel through a side entrance guarded by two Italian men, and Artyom doesn’t slow down or look at them, he just presses a hand against the small of my back the moment we step outside, guiding me toward the car waiting at the curb.
His palm is warm through the thin fabric of my dress, steady in a way that makes the whole day dissolve into a strange, floating sensation that follows me into the backseat.
He doesn’t tell me where we’re going. He doesn’t even look at me directly, just glances at my hands when I clasp them too tightly in my lap, then looks out the window again.
“You’ll see,” he says when I ask.
The car drives through narrow streets that get quieter and darker the farther we go, the city shifting from polished stone and tourists to alleys that smell like smoke and heat, the kind of place where neon signs flicker above doors that only open for certain people.
Artyom sits beside me, elbow resting on the window, his other hand loose on his knee, his posture relaxed but his jaw tight in that focused way that tells me he’s not relaxed at all.
“You’re quiet,” he murmurs, still looking straight ahead.
“So are you,” I say.
He huffs a breath through his nose, something between a laugh and an exhale, and the sound curls low in my stomach because it’s warm, softer than I expect, almost amused in a way that feels private.
When the car stops, he steps out first and waits for me on the sidewalk, his hand extended and I take it because I don’t know where we are, and because his fingers curl around mine like he’s anchoring me without meaning to.
The building looks like nothing from the outside—dark windows, a single unmarked door, the kind of place you’d walk past without noticing if you weren’t looking for it.
But as we step inside, I see another world.
The hallway glows red and low and warm, the kind of lighting that makes people look softer, slower.
A man behind a desk nods at Artyom immediately, eyes flicking to me with curiosity before he hands us wristbands.
“What is this place?” I whisper as we walk deeper, my voice almost swallowed by the low hum of music rolling through the walls.
“A club,” he says simply.
“What kind of club?”
He gives me a look that says he’s choosing his words carefully. “Not the kind Calina or Milana are allowed to step foot in.”
That doesn’t answer anything and answers everything at the same time.
We walk down a long, dim corridor, the lighting a pervasive, pulsing crimson that seems to thicken the air itself.
The air is warm and heavy, scented with a layered mix of expensive leather, stale champagne, and something sweet, musky, and violently unfamiliar—a pheromonal cocktail that catches at the back of my throat.
I can feel the bassline of distant, heavy music vibrating up through the floor, a constant, low thrum that mirrors the frantic beat of my own heart.
As we pass the first room, separated from the corridor by a massive pane of smoked, reflective glass, my breath catches sharply, a physical jolt that makes my body tense. My gaze is instantly locked, horrified, and yet compelled.
Because I see everything, rendered in blurred, shifting color.
It is a chaotic, primal scene: a tangle of wet, pale limbs and dark, defined shadows, a shifting mass of human forms pressed tightly together.
The colored light catches the slick sheen of sweat and heated skin.
I register the frantic speed of the movement, the bodies colliding and separating, driven by a raw, immediate need that is utterly devoid of gentleness.
A low, continuous, almost desperate moan, then pitched high and ragged, bleeds faintly through the thick glass—more animalistic than anything I've ever heard—and the sound sends a violent shiver of revulsion mixed with electric curiosity down my spine.
My face flushes instantly, a wave of humiliated heat surging up my neck and across my cheeks.
But the true shock is the audience. The dozen or so men and women standing right outside the action, behind the glass—in tailored suits, holding perfect drinks—are watching with a terrifying calm and calculated detachment, as if they are simply observing a stock market ticker or a piece of abstract art.
Their cool indifference makes the chaotic display inside feel less like a party and more like a carefully controlled exhibition of depravity.
My heart is thudding too fast, a frantic drumbeat of pure, unadulterated fear mixed with an immense, dizzying excitement.
I press my arm tight against my side, trying to mute the sound, realizing I didn’t even know places like this actually existed outside of whispered rumors.
This is real, raw, and suddenly terrifyingly within reach.
I feel Artyom watching me from the corner of his eye. His presence is a solid wall next to me, waiting for me to break, waiting for my judgment, or maybe, waiting for my surrender. I want to look away, but the chaotic, magnetic pull of the scene is too strong.
“This is one of the voyeur rooms,” he says quietly, voice low enough that only I hear it.
I nod, but I can’t look away. Something about it pulls at me, not because I want to be in there, but because I’ve never seen anything like it, never imagined people could be so open with desire, so unashamed, so… free.
Artyom steps closer. “You okay?”
“I—I didn’t know people did this,” I say, my cheeks burning.
He leans in, his voice dropping. “People do everything.”
I don’t know why that makes heat spark under my skin, but it does.
We move on, past another room, and another, each one different, and each time we pass a new one my breath grows shorter, not from shock but from the strange curiosity that builds slowly with every step we take.
I’m not scared, but there’s something alive in me, something warm and restless that presses against the edges of my ribs.
We reach the room he came here to check—a darker space with nothing but a long couch and a man counting money at the table.
Artyom talks to him briefly, low and serious, something about schedules and shipments and who’s in charge of tonight’s rotation.
I hear him enquiring about his business partners and the man tells him they have booked a private party room upstairs, if he cares to join.
I listen but I’m distracted by the pulse in the air, the dim lights, the muffled sounds coming from behind other doors, the warm pressure in my stomach that won’t settle.
When they finish, the man nods and walks away.
“That’s it?” I ask as we step back into the hallway.
“That’s it,” he says. “We can leave.”
We start to walk, but the moment we pass another glass room, the one with the group sex that made my whole body go warm, the heat inside me spikes so fast I freeze mid-step, unable to move or breathe, and before I can force myself to look away, I feel him stop behind me, and I don’t have the willpower to keep walking.