Chapter 1 #2
I slip along the side wall, stopping at the utility closet directly across from the lounge door. I press my ear to the wood. The mic should still be catching everything from Julie’s necklace charm.
This is it. The part where everything we’ve planned either works or crashes.
And I’ve got one shot to get it right.
The audio comes in muffled at first—bass echoing through the floor, the door thick and sealed. But then Julie shifts, and the charm mic swings just enough to catch Serrano’s voice clearly, like he’s sitting right beside me.
“…depends on how close you want to get to the source,” he says. “Some girls like to stay on the surface. Parties. Gifts. Nothing long-term.”
Julie’s voice follows, smooth and curious. “And if I wanted more?”
A beat of silence. I imagine him smiling.
“Then we’d have to trust each other. I don’t offer trust easily. Not in this city.”
Julie laughs softly. “That’s ironic. You seem like someone people trust too easily.”
“I am. That’s the danger.”
My jaw tightens.
God, he sounds reasonable. Polished. Even charming. If I didn’t already know what he was—if I hadn’t read the testimonies buried in lawsuits that were mysteriously withdrawn—I might think he was just a powerful man making smart moves.
But I do know.
I know about the missing girl whose name was redacted from police reports. About the shell companies registered under street addresses that don’t exist. About the “philanthropy fund” that somehow paid for luxury penthouses across three states.
“You’re very careful, Rafael.”
He laughs, and it’s not a pleasant sound. “Careful’s how you stay rich in this city. Careless gets you robbed, or worse.”
A pause. A clink of glass on marble.
“You ever work in real estate, Julie?” he asks.
“No, but I’ve watched enough people fake it.”
He chuckles again, but this time it’s slower. “Faking it isn’t what I’m after. I want smart. Discreet. Useful.”
Useful. That word always makes my stomach turn. I can feel Julie thinking it too, even if her voice doesn’t change.
“I can be useful.”
I hear the soft thud of movement. Chairs shifting. Someone leaning forward.
I pull out my phone, check the waveform. The mic’s still catching everything. The levels spike with Serrano’s next line.
“You ever move money? Not the legal kind. The stuff that doesn’t leave fingerprints.”
At the far end of the hallway, someone catches my eye.
He’s taller than most of the club’s security, with broad shoulders that fill out a charcoal suit in a way that seems both effortless and unmistakable.
His hair is dark, cut close on the sides, a little longer on top, casual like he ran his fingers through it instead of a comb.
The collar of his white shirt is open at the throat, and there’s no sign of a tie.
Even in the dim light, I can see his jaw, clean-shaven and sharp, and the way his mouth settles into a line that looks neither friendly nor hostile.
He doesn’t glance at the crowd the way the others do.
His eyes, a pale, startling blue, move slowly over the hallway, pausing on every detail with a kind of quiet focus that’s impossible to fake.
When they land on me for a heartbeat, I feel a shock run up my spine.
There’s no threat in his gaze, just an intensity that makes me feel as if I’ve been catalogued, filed away for later.
For one breathless moment, my heart skips and I forget what I’m supposed to be listening for behind the lounge door.
He isn’t just attractive; he’s magnetic in a way that feels dangerous, like the calm before a summer storm. Everything about him stands out.
Up close, he’s even more striking—those pale blue eyes cool and unreadable, dark hair catching hints of gold in the club’s shifting lights, jaw tight with purpose. For a second, I think he might stop, but he just passes by, barely glancing in my direction.
The air changes as he goes. My pulse stutters in my throat, heat rising to my cheeks as his cologne, subtle and expensive, drifts in his wake.
I stand completely still, breath caught, only realizing how tense I am once he’s a few steps past. The pressure in my chest finally eases, and I release a shaky breath.
I glance back at the lounge door, willing my focus to return, but suddenly everything is different.
The laughter is gone. The muffled voices I’ve been tracking for the last fifteen minutes have disappeared, swallowed up by the thumping bass below.
I shift closer, tilting my head, trying to catch a single word from Julie or Serrano. Nothing but silence.
I fumble for my phone, double-check the feed. The audio is dead, the waveform flat and empty.
A cold, tight feeling settles in my stomach.
Something’s wrong.
I tap the screen again, then twice more, but the feed stays blank. No voices. No signal. Just the dull rumble of bass bleeding through the floor and the occasional clatter of glasses from downstairs.
My fingers tighten around the phone.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
Julie was supposed to keep him talking. She was supposed to ease into it, stretch the conversation just long enough for Serrano to let something useful slip.
The lounge was chosen for its thin walls, the acoustics, the way we could catch sound even from outside the door.
We tested it. We rehearsed it. Nothing about this silence makes sense.
I glance toward the stairwell. The man in the suit is gone. No trace of him. The hallway feels emptier without him, but not safer.
I press my ear to the lounge door. Nothing.
I try the handle, slow and careful. It doesn’t move.
Locked.
I back up a step, weighing options I don’t like. I could try circling to the other side of the upper floor, maybe get into the utility room behind the wall. But that takes time. Time I’m not sure Julie has if something’s happened.
I pull out my second phone. It’s a cheap burner, untraceable. We agreed—no calling or texting unless it was urgent. But I dial anyway.
The line clicks once, then goes to voicemail.
I try again.
Still nothing.
Panic creeps up the back of my throat. Not the loud kind, not the type that makes you scream or run. It’s colder than that. Sharper. A quiet certainty that something has veered off track and there’s no map left to follow.
I look down the hallway again. The bouncer is gone.
Then I hear it.
A thump.
Not loud. Not frantic. But enough to turn the cold in my chest into something heavier.
I slip the phone back into my coat and reach for the pin at my collar, flipping it sideways to activate the emergency record. My fingers tremble slightly. Whatever’s happening in that room, I need to see it. And if I can’t hear Julie anymore, that means I’m done listening.
I back away from the lounge door, heart pounding a little faster now, but my steps are careful. I retrace the hallway toward the supply closet, scan the ceiling, the vents, the thin sliver of shadow between the plaster and the ductwork. There has to be another way in.
The layout flashes through my mind again. We studied it for days. Behind the lounge, there’s a narrow corridor meant for staff and storage—low ceilings, utility pipes, and a maintenance hatch that opens into the side wall of the private room.
I slip into the closet, closing the door behind me.
The smell of bleach hits immediately. Harsh and familiar.
The kind that clings to your clothes. I flick on the light and find a rusted metal step stool in the corner, then drag it beneath the access hatch with shaking hands.
My boots creak faintly as I climb up. The hatch isn’t locked, just sealed with a latch, and it takes a careful twist to pop it loose without making too much noise.
The panel shifts open with a low groan. Dust rains down, and I pull myself up.
The crawl space is tighter than I remember. Warm, cramped, stifling. My jacket snags against a pipe, but I keep going, elbows scraping along the insulation as I inch forward. The club’s bass is quieter here, just a dull pulse beneath my ribs. My breathing is too loud. Every sound feels amplified.
When I reach the slotted grate, I pause. It opens directly into the upper corner of the lounge, angled just enough to give me a view of the far end of the room.
The couch is empty.
Julie isn’t there.
The glasses on the table haven’t been touched. One is tipped over, dark liquid seeping slowly into the velvet cushion.
My body goes still.
I scan quickly, eyes adjusting to the dim light, but there’s no sign of her. No sign of Serrano. Just the quiet hum of a room that looks like someone left in a hurry.
Or was taken.
I press my face closer to the grate, searching for any trace of movement, any flicker of shadow in the corners. Still nothing.
Then a door opens on the other side of the room. Not the one I was at earlier. This door leads somewhere deeper. Private. Hidden.
I catch a flash of someone’s back. A man. Dark suit. Taller than Serrano. He moves fast, shutting the door behind him without looking back.
My skin prickles. It’s the man from the hallway. The one who looked at me without really seeing me.
And now Julie is gone.
I stare at the door he disappeared through, my breath held tight in my chest. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know what just happened. But I know I’ve lost control of this story.
If I want to find Julie, I’m going to have to go deeper than I planned.