Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Adrien
The Sanctuary was supposed to be untouchable. A refuge for the powerful and the weary—a place where secrets stay secret. Instead, it’s become a stage for betrayal, and I’m the fool who bought and expanded it.
The Sanctuary promises a place out of the public eye, away from nosy reporters and photographers aiming to make a quick buck off insinuation and lies.
A place where friendships can flourish, and a place where business can be discussed without scrutiny.
Privacy, the one thing our members crave, is something I’ve failed to provide.
Brie moves through the space like an appraiser, her gaze cataloguing every imperfection as if she were valuing a piece at Christie’s.
The low light glints off the brass fixtures—dulled by neglect.
The equipment rack hums with a frequency I feel in my teeth—industrial, expensive, maintained.
Someone’s been caring for this technology while letting the brass fixtures tarnish as camouflage.
As Brie snaps photos of the room and studies every crevice and light, the dizzying effect of the implications comes at me like a vortex with one exit. Every face from every event flashes through my mind—senators, CEOs, celebrities. Trust, bought and paid for. And now broken.
For years, I’ve sold the fantasy of control—curated pleasure, engineered intimacy.
But what happens when the fantasy outgrows its maker?
When desire becomes the weapon, not the reward?
When intimacy is stripped of consent and sold back as leverage, what do you even call that—lust, or something far uglier wearing its skin?
“I need to shut the club down.”
Brie applies pressure to my arm, and I cut my gaze to meet hers.
I expect sympathy—or at least a flicker of pity—but she’s all business.
The same cool precision that once turned me on now slices clean through fresh wounds.
I’m probably one of many she never meant to keep—just another weekend folded into an alias.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Come on. Let’s go. Step out of here and don’t touch anything.”
“What? Why?”
“Because someone’s using this room. I’ll show this to the team.
When your staff returns tomorrow, by Wednesday at the latest, we’ll know who is doing this, then we’ll shut it down.
How you handle the membership, that’s up to you, but you can set safeguards in place to ensure this never happens again. ”
I exit into the hall, watching as she holds her magical device up to the keypad until it beeps red again, the lock re-engaging.
When was this room added? Was it here three years ago when I bought it? Did I buy my own liability?
As Brie messages someone, I stand in the basement corridor, considering the staff.
Eddie Thorne—“Call me Eddie”—has to be involved.
I replay the conversation when he showed me the security system, how he casually mentioned the “closed circuit” setup while guiding my attention to the visible cameras, not the infrastructure.
The way he always seemed to materialize when I visited unannounced, as if he had advance warning. Jesus. He probably did.
Then there’s Macon Chen, head of security. If Eddie’s the strategist, Macon is the muscle. Are they working together? If they are, the rot goes deeper—maybe all the way to Miami.
As managing director, Eddie oversees the New York and Miami locations, but Macon only manages security for the New York club.
And then there’s Tiffany—that’s not even her real name.
It’s what she chooses for the membership, and I’ve never questioned it because discretion is currency here.
For years I’ve called her Tiffany, watching her glide through the club in those perfectly tailored shifts, embodying the aesthetic we sell.
But her real name is pedestrian... Karen?
No. Carol? The irony stings—I don’t even know the real name of the woman who knows every member’s preferences, every whispered request, every private need.
“Come on. We’re going to meet the team in the security room.” She stops further down the corridor, her long hair glimmering under the light as she looks over her shoulder. “Adrien, the operation just got a lot simpler. At the moment, this might not seem like it, but this is a best-case scenario.”
“Are you out of your mind? There’s nothing best case—”
“Come on. You said staff might pop in this afternoon. We have work to do. You need to snap out of it.”
She sounds annoyed…with me.
What the hell?
I step forward, following her out of the basement.
Maybe she should be annoyed. My stomach feels like it’s been hollowed out with ice.
I let this happen under my own roof—under my own name.
It all happened while I focused on marketing and how to leverage my learnings to grow the family business.
What my father called folly I thought had been brilliant brand extension, but that flash of brilliance might cost me my reputation as a businessman to be taken seriously, and well, if the clubs go under, I’d get a fraction of the $1. 5 billion I invested.
The irony is rich—I fought to earn my independence from the family business, only to discover I’ve been played by my own employees. Every conversation with my father about due diligence and hands-on management echoes in my head. Perhaps Papa was right about my naivety after all.
On the first floor, an elevator dings, and Noah exits—broad, steady, lethal calm wrapped in civility. He gives me a curt nod before joining Brie, flipping through her photos like he’s building a criminal case.
“And you didn’t know about this room?” With his shaved head and dark beard, he reminds me of a bouncer at a high-end nightclub in Rome. Obviously, he’s not the same man—based on what I recall from his profile from the initial briefing with KOAN, probably more lethal.
“No. I didn’t.” A bitter taste lingers on my tongue.
“Alright. We’ll need to find the surveillance video of the hallway,” he stops, and scans the ceiling.
“Actually, we’ll see if we can loop the surveillance video for all of today.
Whoever’s running this operation may check the video regularly for activity.
If we’re lucky, he hasn’t already been alerted of activity, or if he has, he doesn’t have remote access.
We’ll leave the footage of Adrien d’Avricourt and Brie.
” At this point, he’s talking to himself, but he also seems to be talking to a speaker on his phone.
“We’ll set up our own surveillance. If we don’t see anything within the next few days, we’ll know they’re on to us.
But chances are, we’re going to figure out quickly who within your organization is behind this. ”
“It’s got to be Eddie. He’s been here for eighteen years—since the original Sanctuary opened.
There’s no way he’s not aware of that room.
He has master access to everything, schedules all the security rotations, and…
” I pause, the implications hitting me. “He’s the one who briefed me on the ‘closed circuit’ surveillance system when I bought the place.
He specifically told me nothing was stored.
” My hand balls into a fist at the realization I’ve been played this whole damn time.
“Then, the question becomes, who’s working with him, and I’d say at least some on the security team.
As far as other teams, food and beverage, hospitality, marketing, custodial, I’d say they’re less likely to be involved but you never know.
Thinking it through, I should shut it down.
There’s too much at stake. I can’t risk our members—” I have to stop talking. He gets the point.
“No. You can’t stop anything,” Noah insists.
Brie says, “Evidence leading to the guilty parties would evaporate overnight. I promise you, we’ll figure out who within your company is involved, but the best way to do that is to monitor and catch them in the act.
Plus, I’d like to remind you, there are other parties involved.
Your organization is one source of information.
There’s a group out there buying and selling information. That’s the group we’re really after.”
I could argue that point, but it would be pointless.
“Quinn and I are going to plant surveillance. How much time do we have?”
I run my fingers through my hair, thinking through Mondays from the past so I can answer Brie.
Given I travel frequently and often work from my home office on Mondays, since the staff isn’t here, I’m not a particularly reliable source of information.
But I do know that the kitchen staff consists of a lot of night owls, and Eddie himself loves his days off and lives ninety minutes outside of the city on Long Island.
He keeps a room here for when he chooses not to go home.
“It’s unlikely anyone will stop in before noon.
As the day goes on, the chances increase that someone in the neighborhood might swing by to check on something.
But Monday is a pretty sacred day off, and Tuesday we don’t open until evening service, so, chances are you’re safe.
” Noah’s staring at me like he’s assessing how much he can trust me, and that’s a fair reaction.
“There’s no guarantee,” I say, pissed at myself for this situation. “I have staff with access on days off.”
Brie steps closer to Noah, her voice dropping to a professional tone.
“We’ll need to clone their system architecture before we install our own monitoring.
If they’re sophisticated enough for this setup, they’ll notice new hardware.
I’m going to go join Quinn in the security room.
” She addresses me with a sharp, focused gaze and a crisp directive.
“Why don’t you go call Alicia to create a plan should this leak to your membership. ”
She’s right. That’s what I should do. Right after I console myself with my finest scotch. Jesus, Margot is going to rip me a new one.
“Alicia’s your best bet. She knows what’s going on, and you can’t yet trust your existing marketing team.”
Brie didn’t need to state the obvious, but I’ll grant her she’s quite right.
“I’ll be in my office,” I say, meaning the room where I once thought success could be distilled like good scotch—aged, smooth, and utterly safe. “But don’t leave without reconvening.”
Yes, it sounds like I’m saying it to the team, but I’m speaking to the blonde beauty who slips easily into the mist.
As I watch her vanish into the elevator, a distasteful realization settles over me. The woman I searched for across Europe is now the one standing between me and professional ruin. Salvation or punishment—I can’t yet tell which.
The doors slide closed and she’s gone. A familiar ache resumes in my chest—the echo of her absence. Years ago, I thought losing her was the cost of fantasy. Now I’m beginning to understand she may be the price of truth.