15. Justin
JUSTIN
Rowan Hale is not the only one who knows how to be anonymous.
The girl is relentless. Curious. And far too pushy for her own good.
When Miguel called to tell me about a woman who kept showing up night after night, testing the door like it might eventually give in, I almost ignored it.
The Slay Pen attracts that type—hopefuls, thrill-seekers, people who think persistence will eventually get them over the threshold. Not likely, but one can hope.
Something in his description of the girl snagged my attention.
Blonde hair. Nervous smile. The unmistakable sense that she doesn’t belong here.
That detail stuck. Because there’s a girl I know who fits that description to a tee.
So tonight, I make an appearance. Not because I need to—but because I want to see her for myself. To confirm it’s the same woman I’m thinking of. To find out what she’s chasing… or what she’s looking for.
Miguel calls the moment she approaches the door, his voice low as he tells me she’s been let inside—mask and all.
I stay where I am, waiting for her to come into view.
From the balcony, the club opens below me like a wound that never healed.
Smoke coils through fractured light, wrapping around bodies moving slow to a bassline that feels like sin with a heartbeat.
Then she appears.
Even with the mask on, she’s impossible to miss. Wide-eyed. Hesitant. She has no idea what to expect or what she’ll find. She’s standing at the threshold like she’s waiting for permission to breathe before she moves further into the room.
Her hair catches the light—blonde waves falling over her shoulders, soft where everything else in this room is sharp. Her dress fits too close, like it’s holding a secret it refuses to share. Every line of her body draws the eye, but she wears it like armor that doesn’t quite fit.
She shouldn’t be here. She knows it. Every nervous movement gives her away—fingers tightening around her clutch, chin lifting when she remembers she’s supposed to be brave.
And still… I can’t look anywhere else.
Because she doesn’t look anything like the other women here tonight. The others are polished, practiced—born into darkness and affluence. She’s full of fear and curiosity. Light trespassing in a place that devours it.
My jaw flexes beneath my mask. The sound system hums. From up here, the pulse of the crowd looks almost ritualistic—every beat another offering.
Then she makes her first mistake.
She pulls out her phone.
There’s one quick movement. One flash.
Which is a rookie move that cements the assumption that she doesn’t belong here.
Heads turn toward her like hounds scenting blood. My men move faster than thought—two of them sliding off the wall, cutting through the crowd. They’re efficient, trained, and about to make a mistake of their own.
I press the comm at my wrist.
“Stand down.”
They hesitate.
The taller one leans toward her anyway, smiling in that way men do when they’re trying to intimidate a woman.
“Now,” I say, voice low.
They freeze. She doesn’t even realize she’s just been spared.
I watch her shift in place, scanning exits, chest rising fast. Fear suits her—it sharpens her, makes her look alive in a room full of darkness.
Below, my men back off after she rushes to the nearest exit. I let them sweat a little before I key the comm again.
“If she’s here again, she’s mine to deal with,” I tell them. “No one touches her. No one speaks to her unless I say so.”
A pause crackles back. “Copy that, Boss.”
Rowan—this trembling, defiant girl with hair like sunlight—just stepped inside my world, unaware what kind of darkness she’s walking toward.
I rest my hands on the railing, eyes tracking her as she edges toward the door, unaware that every step she takes draws her deeper into my orbit.
The fact that she’s made it this far—that her digging led her straight to the club, that she dared to trespass on my life—means one thing: I need to know everything about Rowan Hale. Every secret. Every motive. Every inch of what makes her tick.
Because it tells me two things about her.
One—she’s relentless.
And two—she’s not going anywhere.
The proof comes the very next night when the bouncers alert me she’s back.
For a second, I think I’ve misheard. After yesterday, I expected her to vanish—to run for the mountains and never look back. But no.
She’s here. In my club. Breathing my air. And I have no goddamn idea what to do with that.
“Let me handle this,” Marshall hums, slipping his silver mask into place.
The light catches on it, sharp and cold, half-hiding a face that’s too handsome for his own good.
Brown hair falls forward, brushing the edge of the mask, giving him that careless, devil-may-care look that makes women trust him when they shouldn’t.
“I’ll handle it,” I counter, because I always do.
We move side by side down the narrow walkway of the upper level.
The sound of the crowd below rises and falls like the ocean—bass, laughter, sin.
I roll up my sleeves as we walk, feeling the heat of the room crawl up my neck.
Marshall’s gaze flicks to my forearms, where the new ink cuts clean and black across my skin.
“Dude,” he mutters, feigning offense. “You got another tattoo without me?”
It’s been our ritual since university—tattoos and bad decisions. Back then, it was the only constant between exams, hangovers, and chaos.
“This is from that time you were too busy fucking the twins to keep our appointment,” I say, smirking.
He huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Whatever, man.”
But then his tone changes, drops lower. “What’s the deal with this girl, anyway? The one who keeps showing up?”
Marshall’s loyal to the bone, and he’s proved his alliance to Goliath time and time again.
He’s been my shadow since we were kids, the one I dragged into this mess because trust is a rare currency and he’s the only one I’d spend it on.
If it came down to it, he’d take a bullet for me without blinking.
But even loyalty has its limits.
“Don’t worry about her,” I say. “She’s not Goliath business.”
Not yet, anyway.
The Slay Pen teaches people how to lie with their bodies.
It trains them to move like they belong in the dark—like they were born under red light and velvet rope, like anonymity is a luxury they can afford. Masks help. Masks always help. They blur intent. They soften consequences.
But Rowan Hale doesn’t move like she belongs here.
She moves like someone forcing herself to take up space she knows isn’t meant for her—like every step is a decision, not a reflex. Even when she does her best to blend in, there’s a tension to her, a restraint that doesn’t match the decadence of the room.
I see her the moment she clears the doorway.
Emerald-green satin clings to her body, skimming her curves before falling to her ankles.
The choice isn’t accidental. It’s deliberate.
Long enough to conceal. Long enough to hide the scar she carries like a secret the world doesn’t deserve.
Her blonde hair is swept to one side, cascading over her shoulder, and a black mask encrusted with green jewels frames her face—ornate, defiant, a fragile shield against a room that feeds on exposure.
She’s beautiful. Unmistakably so.
But she doesn’t belong among the horns and veils, the lacquered smiles and hungry glances. She stands out in this house of poison like something living and uncorrupted, something that shouldn’t have wandered into a place designed to devour.
The irony is cruel. The costume should make her invisible in a crowd this theatrical—just another masked figure in a sea of excess. Instead, heads turn. Eyes linger. Curiosity sharpens into interest. Into hunger.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already been noticed. Already marked.
And the sight of it makes my jaw tighten until I swear I can feel my teeth grinding, enamel threatening to give way to bone.
Miguel is stationed at the main entry with two other men, all of them built like the kind of warning sign people pretend they don’t read. He clocks her too. I catch the smallest tilt of his head, the subtle shift of his gaze toward the mezzanine where I’m posted.
I don’t need a signal.
I already feel the wrongness of her being here like a splinter under my skin.
Rowan slides up to the bar and plants herself with a stubbornness I recognize. She scans the crowd like she’s counting exits, faces, patterns. Not admiring or indulging, but hunting.
The sight of her doing that in this place is enough to make my temper flare.
Because the Slay Pen isn’t a club; it’s a marketplace with better lighting.
And men with money and appetite come here to pretend they’re untouchable.
Rowan doesn’t understand the kind of hands that reach for a woman like her when the music is loud enough to drown out conscience. Or maybe she does, and that’s why she looks like a wound pulled tight.
Either way—she shouldn’t be here alone.
I wait until she’s settled. Until the crowd swallows her just enough for the illusion of safety to form.
Then I move.
I take the stairs down, slow, unhurried, letting the mask do what it was made to do—erase the man underneath. Tonight it’s simple, sleek, expensive. A dark half-mask that cuts my face in two and leaves the rest to the imagination.
I don’t like wearing them.
But I like what they permit.
When I reach the bar, I don’t slide in beside her immediately. I order a drink. I let the bartender acknowledge me. I let the room register my presence as something normal, expected.
Then I pivot.
“Drink?” I ask, nodding once toward the bartender, voice smooth enough to be mistaken for casual.
Rowan doesn’t even look at me. “No, thank you.”
Polite. Flat. Final.
The refusal hits like a slap I didn’t see coming. Not because it’s rude—because it isn’t. Because it’s effortless. Automatic. Like she’s already decided I’m irrelevant.
I take the stool beside her anyway.
She stiffens so slightly most people wouldn’t catch it. I do. Her shoulders don’t rise; her chin doesn’t lift. She doesn’t flinch the way frightened women do.
She simply becomes… less accessible.
A vault sealing itself.
I hate how familiar that is. Hate how much it makes me want to pry.
“You don’t look like you’re here for the company,” I say, careful. Light.
“I’m not,” she replies, eyes still roaming the crowd.
“Then what brings you here?”
Her mouth tightens a fraction. “None of your business.”
Interesting. Most people either lie or perform politeness. Rowan offers neither. She treats me like a closed door. Like she’s the one with authority here.
I try another angle. “You’re looking for someone.”
“Everyone’s looking for something,” she tells me, dismissive. “True.” I turn the glass in my hand. “But you’re looking for a particular someone.”
She finally turns her head slightly—not enough to give me her full face, just enough to let me know she’s aware of exactly where I am.
“What do you want?” she asks.
She’s direct, giving me no soft edges.
I can feel my patience thinning, the way it always does with her. Rowan makes me aware of my own control like it’s a fault line.
“I want to know why you’re here,” I say, honest enough to be dangerous.
“Congratulations,” she replies. “You still don’t.”
Then she turns away again.
Her dismissal is quiet, surgical.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck.
I should let it go. This is not the place to push. Not with Miguel’s men watching, not with eyes everywhere, and the wrong kind of people listening for weakness.
But my irritation has guts tonight.
“You don’t belong here,” I say, lower.
Her gaze flicks toward me now, sharp as glass. “Neither do you.”
Touché.
“I do,” I correct. “You don’t.”
“And you’re the authority on that?”
The corner of her mouth lifts, not a smile—an insult shaped like amusement.
I lean in a fraction, letting my voice slip beneath the music, into the narrow space between us where it can’t be overheard.
“Well,” I say, calm and deliberate, “I own the fucking place. So I guess I do.”
The effect is immediate.
Her throat works as she swallows, the smallest betrayal of composure. For half a second, she doesn’t look at me—her gaze flicks through her mask and past my shoulder instead, taking in the bar, the security, the staff moving with quiet purpose. Recalculating.
Embarrassment flashes across her face, quick and sharp, causing her neck to flush a deep red shade. Then concern follows, settling deeper. It’s the dawning awareness of how badly she misjudged the room.
And me.
She straightens, spine going rigid beneath the green satin of her dress, dignity snapping into place like armor. I can practically hear the question she doesn’t ask: How long have you known?
She makes a decision.
She slips from her stool and pivots cleanly, smoothly. She doesn’t raise her voice or make a scene, and doesn’t take a last look back. She just makes a sharp turn toward the door like a woman who knows exactly when to retreat and refuses to give anyone the pleasure of watching her scramble.
Smart. Very smart.
She threads through the crowd with purpose, head down, shoulders set, vanishing into the crush of bodies and masks.
I don’t stop her.
I watch.
Because the fact that she leaves instead of pleading—or provoking—tells me everything I need to know. Rowan Hale doesn’t bluff when the odds turn. She adapts. And anyone who can do that so easily is never as harmless as they appear.