6. The Investigation
THE INVESTIGATION
Soreya sat cross-legged on her couch, laptop balanced on her thighs, the glow of the screen the only light in her apartment. She'd been scrolling for the past hour, her coffee long gone cold on the side table.
She typed into Google: "women missing Richmond nightlife"
The search results loaded slowly, and her stomach tightened as she clicked through them.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 2023: "Family Seeks Answers After 22-Year-Old Vanishes Following Night Out"
WTVR CBS 6, August 2023: "Police Investigate Disappearance of VCU Student Last Seen at Downtown Club"
Reddit r/RVA, 4 months ago: "Has anyone else noticed girls going missing from clubs on Broad Street?"
Soreya clicked on the Reddit thread, her heart pounding.
u/RVAnightowl: I'm not trying to be dramatic but I swear like 3-4 girls I knew from the club scene just... disappeared. Like deleted their socials, stopped showing up, nobody knows where they went. One of them worked at After Dark. Has anyone else noticed this?
u/downtownDee: Yeah I noticed that too. My homegirl used to bartend at Smoke & Gold and she just stopped coming to work one day. Her phone goes straight to voicemail now.
u/clubrat804: This happens all the time tho. Girls move, get new jobs, leave toxic situations. Y'all reaching.
u/RVAnightowl: Nah it's different. These girls didn't just leave. They VANISHED. No goodbye posts, no forwarding info, nothing.
Soreya's hands were shaking.
She opened a new tab and searched: "After Dark Richmond missing"
More articles. More Reddit threads. More unanswered questions.
She pulled up Instagram and navigated to After Dark's official page. Scrolled through the posts—bottle service photos, event flyers, videos of packed dance floors. She clicked on the tagged photos and started going through faces.
There.
A girl named @imanibaddie who used to post constantly from After Dark—selfies in the VIP section, videos with other bottle girls, stories tagged at the club every weekend.
Soreya clicked on her profile.
The last post was from six months ago.
Nothing since.
No explanation. No goodbye. Just... silence.
Soreya's throat tightened. She kept scrolling, finding more profiles like that. Girls who used to work at After Dark, used to post there constantly, and then just stopped. Some profiles were deleted entirely. Others were frozen in time, the last posts months or even a year old.
She opened her messages and pulled up a girl she knew from high school who worked bottle service at After Dark.
Soreya (11:38 PM): hey girl! random question but you still working at after dark?
The response came faster than she expected.
Kayla (11:40 PM): yeah why?
Soreya (11:41 PM): just wondering if you heard about imani? she used to work there right?
The typing bubble appeared, then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Kayla (11:43 PM): yeah she worked there. why you asking about her?
Soreya (11:44 PM): idk i just noticed she stopped posting. you know what happened to her?
Kayla (11:46 PM): girl... some girls just disappear from the club scene. management don't like us talking about it. they say it's bad for business.
Soreya's stomach dropped.
Soreya (11:47 PM): what you mean disappear? like they just quit?
Kayla (11:49 PM): i'm not supposed to talk about this. but yeah. girls go missing sometimes. nobody knows where they go. and if you ask too many questions you get fired. so we just... don't talk about it.
Soreya (11:50 PM): that's scary as hell kayla
Kayla (11:51 PM): i know. but the money good and i need this job. just be careful if you come through there. don't go nowhere alone. don't trust nobody.
Soreya stared at the screen, her heart racing.
She went back to Google and searched: "After Dark Richmond unsafe TikTok"
After scrolling through several results, she found a cached link to a deleted TikTok video. The thumbnail showed a young Black girl with box braids, sitting in her car.
Soreya clicked it.
The video was grainy, clearly screen-recorded before it was deleted.
"Y'all, I'm done with After Dark," the girl said, her voice shaking.
"I don't care if they fire me for this. That club is NOT safe.
Girls be going missing and management act like nothing happened.
I'm not saying what I think is going on, but something AIN'T right.
If you work there, be careful. If you party there, watch your drinks. I'm out."
The video ended.
Soreya's hands were trembling so badly she almost dropped her phone.
She pulled up Vesper's contact and hit call.
Vesper answered on the third ring, her voice thick with sleep. "Girl, it's almost midnight. What's wrong?"
"Vesper, I need to talk to you about something."
"What happened? You good?"
"I—" Soreya's voice cracked. "I've been looking into some stuff. About Reign's club. About girls going missing."
There was a pause.
"Missing? What you mean missing?"
"Like disappearing, Vesper. Girls who used to work at After Dark just... vanishing. No posts, no contact, nothing. And when I asked somebody who still works there, she said management don't let them talk about it."
"Soreya..." Vesper's voice was cautious now. "What you trying to say?"
"I don't know!" Soreya stood up, pacing her living room.
"I don't know what I'm saying. But that guy Truitt, he asked me about it too.
About people going missing from clubs. And now I'm finding all this stuff online and I just—" Her voice broke.
"Something ain't right, Vesper. Something is really, really wrong. "
"Okay, slow down. You think Reign got something to do with this?"
"I don't know. But he's always at that club. He owns it. And girls are disappearing from there and nobody's talking about it and—" She stopped, her breath coming in short gasps. "I'm scared, Vesper. I'm actually scared of him."
"Girl, we been telling you something ain't right about Reign," Vesper said quietly. "The way he move, the hours he keep, how he be acting... But this? This is different. This is serious."
"I know."
"What you gonna do?"
Soreya looked at her laptop, at all the open tabs, at all the unanswered questions.
"I don't know," she whispered. "But I need answers. I need to know what's really going on."
"Be careful, Soreya. If Reign is involved in something like this... you don't know what he capable of."
"I know," Soreya said, her voice barely audible. "That's what scares me."
After they hung up, Soreya sat in the darkness of her apartment, staring at her phone.
Reign's last text was still on her screen: I love you. I'm sorry.
She didn't know what he was sorry for.
But she was starting to think it was something much worse than cheating.