Club Z
Inside, it’s red light and shadow. Leather and smoke. The air hums with bass that isn’t music so much as a heartbeat, steady, brutal. You can taste the filth in here, the hunger, the want that strips a person raw and leaves them unrecognisable.
I’ve been here a hundred times, and still it never feels like walking into a club—it’s stepping into a cage.
Someone claps me on the shoulder, a voice cutting through the din. “Walker.”
I don’t even look at him. I know who it is—Rafe. He thinks we’re the same. Maybe we are. “Rafe.”
“You slumming it tonight?” he smirks, eyes tracking a girl crawling past on all fours, leash held by a man in a suit. “Didn’t think I’d see you back here.”
“Business.” The word is clipped. Final.
He laughs low. “Right. That’s what we all tell ourselves.”
I leave him with his lies and cut through the bodies, the cages, the heat. Every scent—perfume, sweat, fear—presses in until it sticks under my skin. Normally, I can sink into it. Normally, Club Z gives me exactly what I need: control, silence, oblivion.
Not tonight.
Because all I see is her.
Brooklyn, standing in the glow of red light, not here but burned into my mind anyway—her mouth defiant, her eyes lit like she’d dare me to ruin her twice.
She doesn’t belong in this place, not in her ripped jeans and too-honest smile.
But she’s in my head all the same, and it’s a worse punishment than anything Club Z could put me through.
Rafe circles back, drink in hand, watching me with too much interest. “You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one men get when they’ve found a new obsession.”
I grip the glass he offers but don’t drink. My jaw aches from clenching. “Stay out of my business.”
He smirks, unconvinced. “If you bring her here, she won’t survive it.”
His words hit like a blade, because that’s the problem, isn’t it? I’m not sure I want her to survive me at all.
The bass thunders low, steady as a pulse, vibrating through the floor and into my bones. Club Z doesn’t do music. It does rhythm. It controls. The kind that crawls beneath the skin and doesn’t leave until you’ve bled something for it.
The cages glow in crimson light—metal bars slick with handprints, bodies pressed tight and begging for release or punishment or both. Chains clink like wind chimes in hell. Every inch of the room thrums with the unspoken law of predators and prey.
And I’m supposed to feel at home here.
I usually do.
A girl approaches, nothing but leather straps and high heels, eyes wide behind her mask. She puts her hand on my chest like she already belongs to me. Her perfume hits, sharp and sweet, and for a split second I think about taking it—taking her—using her body to burn out the fire clawing at me.
But the second her fingers graze my shirt, I see Brooklyn instead.
The way her lip trembled last night when she told me she didn’t hate me.
The way her voice cracked when she whispered, she felt guilty.
The way she’d still opened her thighs anyway, begging like she wanted to be destroyed.
My hand wraps around the girl’s wrist, tight enough to make her whimper. She mistakes it for interest. It’s not.
“Not tonight,” I growl, and push her away.
Rafe catches it. Of course he does. He’s leaning against the bar, glass in hand, grinning like he’s been waiting for me to slip. “Since when did Dean Walker turn down free flesh?”
My teeth grit. “Since when do you run your mouth in my direction?”
He laughs, unbothered, sipping slowly. “You’ve gone soft.”
Soft. The word slices something inside me.
I could prove him wrong. I could take the nearest body, bend it over the bar, and make the entire club remember who the fuck I am. I’ve done it before. They’d cheer. They’d clap me on the back and remind each other that Dean Walker doesn’t lose control—he owns it.
But all I can think about is her skin under my hand, her body arched under my mouth, her broken little voice calling me Daddy in the dark like it meant something.
I’m losing the battle already.
Rafe tilts his glass, eyes narrowing. “You want my advice?”
“No.”
“You’re a man who builds walls. Club Z is one of them. Don’t bring her inside, Walker. Walls don’t keep things safe—they keep you from drowning. And you?” He smirks, cruel and knowing. “You’re drowning.”
I finish my drink in one pull, the liquor scorching my throat. The club keeps moving around me, screaming, writhing, moaning, but it’s just noise. Static. Because my head is already back in that house, in that bed, with Brooklyn’s scent all over my skin.
I shouldn’t have come here.
I shouldn’t want her.
And yet I want nothing else.
The deeper I go, the darker it gets.
Upstairs, the bar is noise and sweat and money changing hands.
Down here beneath the floorboards is where the rot breathes.
The walls sweat crimson light, shadows writhing across stone like they’re alive.
Women in cages swing from the ceiling, crying, begging, and laughing, some on their knees with their mouths wide open as if they were trained.
This is what Club Z is for—losing yourself.
No names. No morals. No lines.
I should feel steady here. I’ve always felt steady here. This is my kingdom, my hell, my place to bleed the world dry until nothing touches me. But all I can think about is Brooklyn’s voice in my ear, shaking when she asked what happens if I fall in love with you?
The memory claws up my throat until I’m almost choking on it.
A man stops me in the corridor. Masked, tailored suit, same kind of predator I’ve been a thousand times. He smirks like he’s caught me somewhere I shouldn’t be.
“Walker,” he drawls, “didn’t think I’d see you back in the pit.”
I know him—Elias Kane. Old rival. Sadist. The man who never fucks unless someone cries.
“I go where I want.” My tone is flat steel.
He leans close, voice low. “I hear you’ve been distracted.” Playing house, maybe?” His smile sharpens. “You know what happens to men who get sloppy in here.”
I grip his collar before he finishes the sentence, shoving him hard against the wall. The thud shakes dust from the rafters. His smirk never falters.
“Careful, Walker,” he whispers. “You’re shaking. You only shake when you’re already guilty.”
I let him go with a growl, but the damage is done—he’s smelled blood on me. And now, so will everyone else.
The pit opens at the end of the hall—an arena drenched in red light, velvet ropes, and an audience hungry for pain. Two men circle inside, stripped to the waist, skin already bleeding from the whip lashes decorating their backs. The crowd chants, feral and merciless.
Normally, I’d stand at the edge and watch until something inside me burned clean. Tonight, all I feel is restless. Hollow. Like every scream is an echo of her name.
The same girl from earlier spots me again. She crawls to my feet this time, mask tilted, lips parted, nails clawing at my shoes like I’m her salvation.
I should take her. I should let her swallow me whole and prove to myself I’m still the man they think I am.
But when I look down, all I see is Brooklyn’s face—eyes wide, mouth swollen, whispering Daddy like a prayer.
I grab the girl by the throat, tilt her head back until she gasps. “You’re not her,” I snarl, voice jagged with something that makes even the crowd nearby falter.
I drop her. Hard.
The pit roars around me, but I can’t hear any of it. Because in this place where I’m supposed to feel infinite, I’ve never felt more trapped.
And I already know how this night ends.
With me going home.
With me giving in.
I descend deeper.
Every level of Club Z is another circle of hell, each one filthier than the last. Upstairs it’s play. Down here, it’s punishment.
The air is thick with smoke and rot—sex, sweat, iron. Red curtains bleed against the walls, hiding screams you can only hear when you lean too close. Some men live for those curtains. For not knowing if what they’ll see is pleasure or pain until they’ve already paid the price.
I’ve seen it all. I’ve done most of it. But tonight every step feels wrong, like the walls are whispering her name at me. Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Brooklyn.
I grip the railing, knuckles cracking. I shouldn’t be here.
Elias hasn’t let me out of his sight. He circles me like a fucking jackal, his smirk stretched thin as the women on their knees around us.
“You’re restless,” he says. “When’s the last time you fed?”
“None of your business.”
He chuckles. “Everything’s my business. Especially when it’s about the great Dean Walker finally slipping. Tell me—what’s her name?”
I snap my gaze to him, sharp enough to cut. He just grins wider.
He knows.
He fucking knows.
But before I can carve the smile off his face, the crowd howls. A new performance takes the pit—one woman, strapped to a chair with barbed wire binding her wrists. The masked man circling her wears leather gloves slick with oil, flame licking the tips of his torches.
The audience chants, half in lust, half in bloodlust.
I should watch. I should let the fire eat away at me until there’s nothing left but the merciless man I’ve always been.
But my chest tightens. Because all I can see is her strapped there. Brooklyn, bound and begging. Her voice hoarse as she called me Daddy. Her body trembling under my hands when she whispered, what if I fall in love with you?
My cock is iron-hard. My fists are steel.
I can’t tear my eyes from the stage. The man lowers the torch toward the woman’s thigh—slow, deliberate, a predator teasing prey—and the crowd erupts when her scream splits the air.
Elias leans in, his voice low enough only I can hear. “Remind me, Walker…is that how you break them? Or do you prefer the slow burn of their hearts instead of their skin?”
I shove him back, fury snapping my control, but he only laughs like he’s already won.
The truth is, he knows because he’s seen it. The crack in my armour.
I can’t stay here. Not another second.