Chapter 18 The Devil In Silk #2
“You saw him.” It clearly wasn’t a question.
He was watching me with the placid anticipation of a doctor waiting for the anesthesia to hit.
“I saw someone,” I said carefully. “Who is he?”
I kept my voice steady, even as my mind spun wild theories. I watched Ulysses’s face for any crack in the practiced calm he wore. He studied me the way he studied inventory: quietly, assessing. No rush.
“He’s…” Ulysses began, then trailed off. The pause felt intentional, a little theater to put me in my place. “No one of consequence for you,” he finished at last.
“That’s not what it looked like.” I kept my tone even. “He handed you something.”
Ulysses’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“Paperwork,” he said.
“In an envelope?”
His mouth curved, faintly. Not warm. Not amused. Just aware.
“Josie.” He leaned back slightly, giving me space instead of taking it. “I like your curiosity. That’s useful. But this is the part where you decide not to.”
There it was. Not a warning. A boundary.
I held his gaze a second too long. “And if I don’t?”
His eyes didn’t change. That was the worst part.
“Then you’ll learn why most people mind their own business.”
Silence settled between us: thick, deliberate.
I looked away first.
He picked up his glass, though it was nearly empty. “They come through sometimes,” he added lightly. “Officials. Administrators. They like to feel important. Let them. They leave faster that way.”
I didn’t believe him. Not for a second.
But I nodded.
As I stood, he said, almost casually, “Curiosity keeps you sharp. Just don’t let it make you fragile.”
That was all. No raised voice. No lecture. No explanation.
Just the reminder that he knew exactly how much I’d seen. And exactly how far I could go.
After leaving, Ulysses straightened his suit lapels, his mouth becoming a flat line.
He moved away from the bar with a silent ease, like a shark retreating to deeper waters.
I caught a glimpse of his wrist as he ascended the stairs towards his office.
The air seemed to deflate, releasing its secrets, but the tension did not dissipate.
Instead, it intensified, spreading through me in a slow, radioactive bloom.
I lingered at the bar before heading backstage.
I followed my routine: tucking my hair behind one ear, checking for lipstick on my teeth, adjusting my bra strap.
But my hands shook. I pressed them against the vanity table, watching the veins along my knuckles as if they could guide me.
My reflection looked more like a wax figure than a woman.
I tried out various expressions: neutral, bored, unconcerned.
None of them fit. I needed something sharper for tonight, a mask that could conceal my fear from the rest of the cast.
I avoided Michelle’s gaze as I changed, not trusting myself not to reveal every paranoid thought racing through my mind.
Instead, I focused on getting dressed: slipping on the next costume, zipping up the back, fluffing out the skirt for maximum effect.
My fingers worked automatically while my brain replayed Ulysses’s warning and what it could mean for me.
Exposure would be catastrophic.
The balance was already tipping.
The words stuck in my ears like glue.
I contemplated leaving and never returning, but I needed the tips, and surprisingly, I needed to see what happened next. Maybe that was why people like Ulysses always found people like me.
Maybe that was why Ava was dead.
I pushed away that thought, rolled my shoulders, and took a deep breath, letting the stale perfume and hairspray burn away any remaining dread. I faced the mirror one last time, forcing a smile, then stepped out into the corridor, ready to face whatever waited beyond the curtain.
The house lights were already dimming for my set, the first notes of “I Am The Fire” by Halestorm swelling in the pit. I could feel the heat of Ulysses’s warning radiating from his office above: a reminder that I was now, for better or worse, on his radar.
* * *
The night was finally over. The hush that settled over the greenroom after a late show was always my favorite part of the evening, a brief window of solitude before the city reclaimed me, and the persona I wore onstage could be quietly folded away with the sequined bodysuit and false eyelashes.
I removed the wig, shaking out my sweat-damp curls.
My face looked puffy and unfamiliar in the mirror, like someone else’s mask had been stretched across my bones.
I peeled away the tape holding my breasts skyward, then took a moment to massage the angry red marks it left along my ribs.
The rest of the cast had already peeled off in pairs or trickled out the back to catch a smoke, leaving behind only the lingering fog of hairspray and a handful of lipstick-stained solo cups.
I reached for my hoodie, the one with the thumb holes and paint splatters from my last DIY project in the apartment and tugged it over my head.
The faintest feeling, an itch at the crown of my scalp, made me pause mid-motion, arms tangled in the fabric like a butterfly half-pupated from its cocoon.
I inhaled, holding the scent of bleach and cheap detergent in my lungs, and felt eyes on me, as tangible as goosebumps rising on my arms. Someone was behind me.
The dressing room was a shoebox with a single oscillating fan and a half-broken fluorescent, casting everything in a shade of green.
Even so, the hallway had its own yellow light, unsteady and thin.
It was from there that Ulysses materialized, leaning against the warped doorframe, his arms folded across his chest. He was still in his suit, of course.
The lapels caught the gloom and made it shimmer; the blood-red silk of his tie was the only color he seemed to allow himself.
He didn’t speak at first, just let the silence bloom between us.
I was struck by how still he stood, no shuffling of shoes or impatient tics, only the rhythmic flick of the hallway light making shadow puppets along the wall behind him.
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the failing air conditioner and everything to do with his gaze, not lecherous, but appraising.
I tried to ignore him, yanking my backpack from the shelf and kneeling to retrieve my sneakers.
The zipper caught, snagging on a stray thread, and I swore under my breath.
Still, his eyes followed every jerky movement.
I finally gave up and turned to face him, one shoe on and the other dangling from my hand.
He had been waiting for this moment. It was all a little stagecraft of his own, a private encore, just for us. I braced my hand on the vanity, the edge biting into my palm, and met his gaze in the cracked mirror.
He lifted his chin, a tiny gesture of acknowledgment, and stepped into the threshold. The air seemed to tremble between us. The city’s noise was muted here, just the click of the oscillating fan, the distant clang of bottles being bussed into plastic bins, and my own heartbeat roaring in my ears.
“You danced like you were casting a spell tonight,” Ulysses said.
His voice was so smooth and deliberate that it almost landed as a compliment, but the edge beneath told me it was not.
I felt my back straighten, instinctively defensive.
“I wasn’t aware you were such a fan of choreography,” I shot back.
There was something about the way he lingered in the doorway that made the room shrink around me, oxygen thinning by the second.
“I notice what’s mine.”
Ulysses’s smile inched wider, baring his teeth just enough to remind me that the rumors about him weren’t just rumors.
He slipped inside the dressing room, closing the door behind him with a click that felt too final. He leaned in, lowering his voice to a register only intended for the two of us.
“You remind me of her,” he said, the words coming out so quietly I almost missed them.
The words landed harder than they should have.
“Ava?” I kept my face neutral. “You didn’t seem all that broken up when she died.” The words came out heavier than I intended.
I watched his face closely, searching for a fault line in that perfect mask, some evidence that this man, this monster, could be wounded.
He didn’t blink.
“You’re assuming a great deal.”
“Am I?”
Ulysses just let the silence stretch until it felt deliberate, his eyes locked on mine.
“She was reckless,” he said at last. His voice was velvet, but I could hear the danger threading through it, a live wire under silk sheets.
“So am I?”
He leaned closer, his scent a mix of aftershave, expensive liquor, and a raw, metallic undertone that made my stomach twist. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
His gaze moved to the Polaroid in my mirror, but he didn’t touch it.
“You’re curious.”
“That’s not a crime,” I retorted.
“It can be.”
I folded my arms. “What was she involved in?”
He looked at me then, directly.
“You’re still here,” he said. “So you already suspect.”
My throat tightened. “Suspect what?”
“That you’re closer to the edge than you think.”
The room felt smaller. I hated that he could do that without moving.
“I don’t scare easily.”
“That’s not bravery,” he said. “That’s inexperience.”
I looked away, focusing on the old Polaroid of Ava I kept taped to my mirror. She was laughing, head thrown back, a blur of blonde hair and red lipstick. The photo was worn at the corners, creased from years of fidgeting.
“I just want to know why,” I said, barely above a whisper. “She didn’t deserve what happened.”
“No one ever does,” Ulysses replied. “The only thing that matters is balance.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
I turned back to him. “You talk about balance like you control it.”
He considered that. “I manage what I can.”
“And the rest?”
“Gets managed.” The simplicity of it was worse than any speech.
I swallowed. “If you know what happened, why not tell me?”
His expression didn’t change. “Because the truth isn’t survivable for everyone.”
There it was. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just flat.
The words hit me harder than I expected. I thought about all the nights I’d watched Ava toe the line between brilliance and self-destruction, the way she could light up a room and then burn it to the ground with the same match.
He reached for the Polaroid, his fingers hovering just above the surface. Then, he stepped back toward the door.
“She trusted you,” he said without turning back. “That’s why you’re still here.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a courtesy.” His lips turned slightly upwards with genuine sadness.
My laugh came out sharp. “Generous.”
He didn’t react, just watched me with that predator calm. “Go home, Josie.”
His hand rested on the knob. “If you keep digging,” he added, “don’t confuse warning with permission.”
I nodded, but I knew it was a lie. I’d seen everything: the envelope, the handshake, the way Ulysses’s eyes hardened when he talked about Ava.
Then he left.
I watched as he slipped into the hallway, leaving me alone with the Polaroid, the flickering light, and the thrum of questions I didn’t want to answer.
I stared at the door for a long time after he left, my reflection in the mirror fractured by the spider web crack that ran from corner to corner.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead like an angry wasp, casting everything in that sickly green pallor that made even my own skin look corpse-cold.
I picked up the Polaroid of Ava, running my thumb over her laughing face until the edges grew soft from handling.
Some truths aren’t survivable for everyone.
The words echoed in my head as I finished getting dressed, pulling on my jeans, and lacing up my sneakers with hands that wouldn’t quite stop trembling. I could still smell his aftershave in the air, expensive and cloying, like funeral flowers left too long in the sun.
Whatever game Ulysses was playing, whatever role he’d cast me in, I was already three moves behind.