11. Chapter 11
Maddox
The dawn light in the penthouse is unforgiving.
It bounces off the floor-to-ceiling windows, highlighting every smudge on the glass and every stray cat hair on the charcoal sofa.
The atmosphere is too quiet. It’s that kind of heavy, ringing silence that follows a disaster, and every time I move, I’m waiting for the floor to give way.
In the kitchen, leaning with one hip on the edge of the counter, I stare into the depths of an espresso cup—when I feel a soft, rhythmic weight against my ankle.
I look down to see Gremlin; she’s a blurry streak of white and black, weaving between my legs with a persistence that’s starting to grate on my nerves.
She lets out a sharp, demanding meow and jumps onto the counter, looking up at me with eyes that seem to judge my very existence.
"Get down, you little shit," I grit out, quickly shoving her off the bench. She lands with a silent thud, but it’s too late, the damage is already done—I look down at my navy blazer and see a fresh coating of her fur clinging to the wool.
Living with Rylen was supposed to be the easy part. The safe part. Now, every closed door in the hallway feels like a loaded gun, the weight of the night before sitting like a stone in my gut.
I close my eyes for a second, drawing in a frustrated breath and move toward Rylen’s closed door.
The silence coming from behind it is louder than any argument we’ve ever had.
Usually, I’d kick the door open and demand he get his cat under control, but today, my hand freezes halfway to the wood.
My skin still feels the phantom pressure of his knuckles lace-locked with mine.
I turn away, grabbing my keys from the hook by the door. I’ve got a club to run. A legacy to protect. And a debt that’s screaming for blood.
Two hours later, I’m in my office on the fourth floor of Velvet, and Astrid is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. She pushes a folder of resumes toward me on the mahogany desk, the sound echoing in the open room.
"Maddox, honey. You keep scowling at the resumes like they’re death warrants.
Just pick three, please . We need the bodies on the floor tonight," she says with firm persistence.
Staring down with a steely gaze, I busy myself by picking a stray white hair off my lapel; my teeth clench as I struggle to grasp it.
"I told you, I want the best. These men look like they couldn't protect a grocery store, let alone a high-stakes lounge," I huff.
"They’re ex-Special Forces. They’re fine," she says, her tone dipping into that motherly finality, "And stop obsessing over the cat hair. You look bloody manic." Astrid sighs, it’s a long, weary sound.
Before I can open my mouth to reply, the intercom on my desk buzzes with a frantic, tinny frequency.
"Maddox? It’s Poppy." The hostess’s voice sounds breathless, bordering on terrified.
"You might want to get down to the service entrance. Rylen is standing by the door, and he’s.
.. well, he’s not letting the catering company through for tonight’s event. "
"What do you mean he's not letting them through?
" I demand, the leather creaking as I sit up straighter. "He snatched a clipboard out of the organisers grip and started shouting at them all to stay back. Maddox, he’s got his hand on his holster. It’s getting weird," Poppy whispers, her voice wobbling.
I breathe out a ragged breath, pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration.
“Yep, okay, thanks Pop. I’ve got it,” I tell her in my best attempt at a soothing tone. I ignore the glare from Astrid, as I push off my chair, sprinting out the door and heading for the lift.
I find them in the basement, at the heavy iron door of the service level. It’s a total mess.
A dozen catering staff in sleek black shirts are standing around looking baffled; clutching clipboards and crates of expensive appetizers, while Rylen blocks the path.
He looks like he hasn't slept in a week, the dark circles under his eyes looking borderline painful.
His onyx hair sticks to his forehead in sweat-soaked clumps.
The bandage on his ear is slightly crooked, and his eyes look wired, and dangerous.
"I don't care if you have a signed contract from the Pope," Rylen snarls. “You don't step foot on this floor until I’ve run your biometrics through a system that wasn't built by a goddamn amateur. Now, back the fuck up."
" Rylen !" I bark, stepping into the frigid air of the basement.
"This is a fucking joke, right?" he scoffs, nodding toward the staff. "You want to let a bunch of strangers into the club when we still haven't found the rat?"
"What I want is for you to step aside and let me run my business," I chide, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. " Now , Rylen."
He stares at me for a long beat, his chest heaving, before he finally steps back, not saying a word as the crew starts to file past. They're looking at him like he’s a ticking timebomb.
I wait until they’re clear before I grab his arm, pulling him into the shadow of the concrete corridor near the security hub.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I hiss. Rylen rips his arm out of my hold, his movements jerky. He won't look at me. He’s staring at the brick wall behind my head with weary eyes, like he’s battling some internal war that’s eating him alive.
It’s breaking my heart to witness. Does he regret what we did?
Is that why he can’t even look me in the eye? Does he hate me now?
"Just doing the job, Mads. Someone has to," he says, faking a smile .
"About last night—" I start, my voice softening.
"Oh, right. That ," he cuts me off, letting out a short, dry laugh that makes my skin crawl.
He finally looks at me now, but his gaze is flat and unreadable as he stares through me.
The air between us is thick—charged with the memory of his mouth on mine, his moans vibrating through my throat, my hand caressing his balls.
"Crazy night, man. Seriously. I was so fucking wasted I barely remember half of it.
The uh, adrenaline from the fight, combined with the scotch.
.. I was basically blacked out." He shrugs, in a completely careless, dismissive movement.
"That Felicia, though...” he lets out a long low whistle.
“Hell of a show. Can see why she earns the big bucks,” he snarks, though his words lack any real substance.
Still, the admission stabs me like a red-hot poker aimed straight for my heart, and I audibly gulp down the rising lump in my throat as I try to form a response.
Rylen pushes on through my silence. “Nathyn’s a no-show and the thermal feeds are lagging again.
The prick’s probably just hungover, but I’m gonna toss the locker room tonight anyway.
" He starts to walk away toward the hub. I stay where I am, the basement air suddenly feeling very thin. He’s lying through his fucking teeth.
"Yeah," I call out to his back, my voice sounding hollow. “I’m pretty foggy on the details myself."
Rylen’s movements halt for a fraction of a second—one of those, blink and you’ll miss it moments—still, I catch the way his shoulders pull in on himself just before he disappears.
I want to chase him. I want to shove him against the concrete and remind him exactly how loud he was when he finally let go last night.
To make him remember the feeling of my mouth, make him see how much he wanted it, until the clicking of heels snaps me back.
Astrid is standing by the open service door, watching the line of white-van deliveries and the frantic catering crew trying to haul crates of vintage crystal and silverware past the scanners.
"He’s getting worse, Maddox," she says softly as I approach.
"That wasn't just him being a hard-ass. That was a man looking for a reason to snap. "
"He’s stressed. The breach, the hit on Morrow... it’s a lot," I retort, adjusting my cuffs. The need to defend him weaves through me like cockroaches writhing under my skin. I don’t mention the threesome. I don’t mention the kiss. She doesn’t need any more ammunition against him right now.
"It’s more than that, and you know it." She shakes her head, gesturing for me to follow her back toward the private elevators. "But we don't have time for a therapy session. There’s one-hundred of the city's most entitled vultures arriving in six hours.”
I cast a seething glance at Astrid for the way she speaks about Rylen, though it doesn’t have the intended effect. She looks at me with pity and a maternal kind of affection. I hate how much I crave it. I hate the way I allow it to soften me.
We head back up to the fourth floor, the silence of the lift feels like a welcome reprieve.
When I walk back into my office, and pour myself a glass of scotch, all I focus on is the way Rylen fled from me.
Maybe he is angry with me, and he has every reason to be.
I push him too hard. I put too much on his shoulders. I’m the cause of his pain.
Astrid begins thumbing through a ledger at the desk across from me, her expression grim.
"Nathyn’s missing," I announce, dropping back into my chair, the hydraulics squeaking from the sudden weight. "But Rylen is... handling it."
"Rylen is unraveling," Astrid corrects. "And so is the budget. Between the payout for Cass, the damage control for the tampered feeds, and the fact that we’ve lost three high-tier memberships this week because of the 'safety rumors'—we're bleeding out, Maddox.
We aren't broke, but the reserves are taking a hit we can't sustain for long. "
She slides a contract across the desk, her voice dropping into her professional 'fixer' tone.
"Tristan Warner is offering a staggering amount for a forty-nine percent stake in Velvet.
Maddox, honey, it would stabilize everything—and pay for the new security you want, plus give us enough of a buffer to hunt down whoever the hell is looping your feeds. "
"He’s a child, Astrid. He’s been coming here what, six months?
And has never booked a girl. He just sits on a waitlist for a chance with The Blood Woman.
It’s pathetic." I grumble. Tristan doesn't care about the club. He wants Felicia. He’s young and stupid enough to think that buying a piece of my club gives him a piece of her.
What would a boy like him know about getting his hands dirty?
"He’s a child with a very large checkbook," she counters. "And he’s the only one not afraid of the Morrow drama. Everyone else is waiting to see if you’re actually going to burn the city down or if you’ve gone soft."
My eyes drop back down to that stupid fucking cat hair on my jacket; it’s mocking me at this point.
I don’t want to think about any of this, I don’t even really care about anything other than Rylen lying to my face in the basement. Fuck. "I'm not selling to a trust-fund brat just so he can follow Lecia around," I state, my voice hardening.
“His money is clean, and it’s immediate.
Not to mention, it would bridge the gap from the high-rollers we lost after the Morrow incident.
It would be a mistake to turn it down," Astrid says with a graceful directness. I look at the numbers. They’re beautiful.
They’re a lifeline, truly. But giving up control—any percentage—feels like losing another piece of the foundation that I’ve fought so tirelessly to build.
"If I let him in, I'm letting another foreign variable into the inner circle," I murmur, my eyes drifting to the darkening window where I saw my reflection last night. "Rylen already thinks the walls are cracking. If I tell him I’ve sold half the club to a nepo baby who’s only thinking with his dick, he’ll lose his mind. "
"Then don't tell him, yet," Astrid says, her gaze pleading with mine. "Decide if you’re a businessman or a saviour, Maddox. Because right now, trying to be both is making you sloppy. You’re overcompensating with Cass, spiraling over Rylen’s ear, and picking cat hair off a five-thousand-dollar suit while your enemies are closing in. "
She taps the folder containing the security candidates—the ones I still need to interview.
"Hire the new guards. Sign Tristan's deal.
Find Rylen and make sure he hasn't actually killed Nathyn for being late.
Because if Nathyn is the rat, we need him alive long enough to find out who else is paying him.
" Astrid’s brows rise high on her radiant face, daring me to unleash that anger on her.
From the moment she interviewed for this job, Astrid has been able to call me out for being a stubborn, petulant ass and still make me respect her; the way that no other person her age has been able to.
I chew on the inside of my cheek to hold back the onslaught of harsh words that are clawing up my throat.
She’s right, of course and yet I hate how angry all this is making me.
But anger is better than tears. Better than grief. Better than guilt. Right?
"Tell him I'll take a loan with high interest, but I’m not giving up a single percent of control. I don't need a partner. I need a solution," I relent. Astrid won’t be happy with my answer, but it’s the best I’ve got. She sighs, gathering up papers, leaving the contract behind.
"I'll see what I can do. But Maddox? You need to fix whatever is happening between you and Rylen. Because if the head of security and the CEO aren't on the same page, the vultures won't need to buy the club—they’ll just pick the bones clean after you two are done destroying each other."
She stops at the door, her expression softening. "And for God’s sake, honey... buy a lint roller. You look like a crazy cat lady."
Her remark manages to pull the first real smile out of me all day, and I make a mental note to give Astrid a raise when we’re back on our feet.
I stare at the line where I’m supposed to sign. My hand is steady, but my mind is back in the hallway with Rylen. Wasted. Blacked out. The low whistle as he praised Felicia’s talents.
The door clicks shut, leaving me alone with the silence and the weight of the pen in my hand.