CHAPTER 14
Brynn
Geneva, Switzerland
I held my place in line outside Club Darrow and paid attention to the door.
Two places ahead of me, a woman didn’t make it through. She wore an expensive dress with impeccable posture to match. The bouncer scanned her ID, frowned, and shook his head once.
She muttered something under her breath, but he didn’t react. She was gone without a scene, escorted out like it was routine.
Okay, so not a place to argue.
When it was my turn, I stepped up and held out the access card I’d lifted from a woman too drunk to notice she was being followed.
A second stretched.
Then he nodded.
I let out a slow breath as the concierge at the next gate unlatched the rope and motioned me through like I belonged.
Look like you belonged, that was the key.
The second I stepped inside, the temperature dropped, not physically but socially. Not every head turned, but the ones that mattered did.
Club Darrow was more than dim. It swallowed details and left faces half-hidden.
Vaulted ceilings loomed above recessed lounges. The long, curved bar glowed low and amber, light catching along rows of glass and gold.
I checked my coat because nothing said I don’t belong here like clutching outerwear like a life raft. The woman behind the counter gave me a numbered tag and a polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
I angled toward the wall, lifting my phone like I had messages to check. Really, I scanned the room like there was going to be a giant neon sign that said Meeting point. Access tests.
There wasn’t.
Just beautiful people, low light, and too many doors pretending they weren’t important.
I still had no idea what the fuck access tests were.
At one table, a man leaned back with a woman draped across his lap, her fingers sliding through his hair while his hand crept higher along her thigh. She laughed, but her eyes weren’t on him. They were tracking the room.
She wasn’t there for him. Good to know.
This place wasn’t built for pleasure. Not really. Pleasure was just the packaging. The real business was in the glances that lasted too long, the hands that passed too close, the laughter that didn’t reach anyone’s eyes. Trade, secrets, power, bodies. Pick your poison.
And tonight, I needed to figure out which one got you through the wrong door.
My pace stayed even, heels hitting in a steady rhythm against polished flooring. A man passed with a glass of something clear and fizzing, slipped a small white capsule under his tongue, then turned to laugh beside a woman who looked like she’d already had several little white capsules.
Another couple brushed by, the man leaning in close, whispering against the woman’s ear. She grinned, reached into his coat, and pulled out a keycard like it was part of a private joke, then kept walking.
The card didn’t go toward the bar.
It went toward a hallway half-hidden beyond a bank of velvet curtains.
The woman pressed the card into a black reader beside a narrow door. A small light flashed green. She didn’t open it. She waited.
A second later, a man on the other side opened the door from within.
No handle on the outside. No obvious lock.
Not a bathroom.
Not a VIP lounge either.
I angled closer.
A server crossed in front of me with a tray of champagne. I lifted a glass because it gave my hand something to do.
The door opened again.
This time, a man in a gray suit stepped out. No drink. No smile. He adjusted his cuff and skimmed the room once before walking toward the back exit.
A woman followed him out three seconds later, clutching a slim envelope against her side.
I needed to get through that door.
I moved toward the bar, then cut left before I reached it, letting a group of laughing men shield the turn. The red dress did what it was supposed to do. It made people look at my legs and not my hands.
I reached the edge of the curtain and paused.
No one stopped me.
The card reader sat beside the door, matte black and clean. Too clean for the rest of the club. Gum and foil were not going to get me anywhere with this one. This was high-tech.
Damn.
I glanced toward the bar, then toward the bouncers.
No one was looking directly at me.
That was almost never the same thing as no one watching.
I slipped the stolen card from my clutch and pressed it to the reader.
Nothing happened.
I pressed it again.
Still nothing.
So the front-door card didn’t work on the creepy secret hallway.
Shocking.
Then the door opened from the inside.
I moved before I thought too hard about it, catching the edge with my fingertips before it shut. The man who came out barely glanced at me, already turning toward the noise and heat of the club.
I smiled like I had every right to be there and slid through.
The hallway beyond was narrow and cooler, the sound of the club dropping behind me like someone had shut a lid over it. Black walls. Low lights.
The air smelled faintly of metal, citrus cleaner, and something electrical.
I kept walking.
The hallway bent once, then opened into a landing above a short flight of stairs. Downstairs, voices moved under the bass from the club.
This might singlehandedly be the stupidest decision of my life.
I should’ve turned around.
Instead, I went down.
The basement level wasn’t a basement in the way normal buildings had basements. No stacked chairs. No beer crates. No broken mop bucket in the corner.
This was polished concrete, frosted glass, and doors that sealed up tight.
A monitor glowed behind one pane of glass, showing camera feeds from the club upstairs. Front entrance. Bar. Hallway. A cropped view of the private door I’d just slipped through.
Typical surveillance.
But on another screen, still images flipped by one by one. Faces pulled from the entrance line. IDs scanned at the door. Time stamps from the last hour.
One of the photos had been taken less than ten minutes ago.
Through the glass, a man in a black jacket stood at a counter while a woman in gloves checked the inside of his passport with a blue light. He didn’t look drunk. He looked scared.
Two people sat at terminals behind her, their faces washed pale by the screens.
“Match failed,” one of them said.
“Run it again,” the other answered.
“Secondary confirmation.”
The woman with the passport turned another page while information shifted across the monitors behind her.
I backed up half a step.
My heel clicked.
Too loud.
I flinched.
There was an open door to my left, barely cracked, blue light spilling through the gap. I leaned close enough to see inside.
The office was small, the chair empty, the terminal still awake.
Bad idea.
Very bad idea.
I pushed the door open and slipped inside anyway.
A black jacket hung over the back of the chair. Someone had only stepped away for a minute.
Maybe less.
I set my champagne on the desk and moved the mouse.
The screen woke fully.
No logo. No helpful label. Just a grid of faces, names, time stamps, and camera stills from the club.
At first, it looked like guest records.
Then the notes beside them made my mouth go dry.
Same person. New passport accepted.
Same face. Different name rejected.
Behavior inconsistent. Hold for review.
I clicked the first entry, and a profile opened with a surveillance still from upstairs on one side and a passport scan on the other.
Same face. Same name.
Beneath that, the screen showed a checklist.
Face matched.
Passport found.
Travel record found.
Payment account found.
Club access approved.
My hand went still on the mouse.
I clicked back and opened another. Different face. Same setup.
This one had been rejected.
Face matched.
Passport found.
Travel record missing.
Payment account missing.
Access denied.
Below that, a note blinked in red.
Send for review.
A cold prickle moved under my ribs.
What the fuck was this?
Before I could make sense of it, a new image slid onto the screen.
Me.
Not a posed photo. Not an ID. A frame pulled from the camera at the entrance. There I stood, platinum wig bright under the club lights, red mouth turned slightly toward the bouncer, absolutely preparing to flirt.
A line blinked beneath it.
Searching for match.
Dots flickered across the screen.
Then another line appeared.
No confirmed identity.
My stomach dropped. “Oh shit.”
“What the hell have you gotten me into, Matt?” I whispered.
A sound moved in the hallway.
I grabbed the champagne without thinking and knocked it straight across the desk.
Liquid splashed over the edge, darkening a stack of papers and running toward the keyboard.
“Fuckkkkkkk,” I whined, loud enough to sell it if anyone was close. “I just paid for that.”
The door swung open further.
I froze with one hand on the desk.
The most stunning woman I’d ever seen stood in the doorway.
She wore a fitted black dress, glossy and expensive in a way that didn’t bother pretending to be subtle, crossing at her throat before cutting open down the center.
Her dark hair was pinned back, loose strands framing a face too calm for the room around her.
Her posture was still enough to make everyone else feel blurry.
She looked at the spilled drink.
Then at the screen.
Then at me.
Her gaze made one clean pass over my faux blonde locks, the dress, the clutch in my hand, and the stolen confidence I’d walked in with.
“Sorry,” I said, too brightly, letting my weight tip against the desk. “Have you seen Erik?”
One of her brows lifted.
I laughed, breathy and embarrassed, and touched my fingers to my forehead. “He said he works security here. Tall, blond, scary cheekbones. I thought this was where he told me to go, but now I’m realizing I may have made a terrible, expensive mistake.”
My attention dropped to the empty champagne glass on its side.
For half a second, I stared at it like that was the real tragedy here.
“And I didn’t even get to finish it,” I muttered.
A man stepped into view behind her. “This area is restricted.”
“Oh, thank God.” I pushed off the desk and went straight for him, too fast, too relieved, too drunk to understand danger. “Erik?”
He stared at me.
I reached for his arm but stopped just short of touching him. Then I squinted up at his face like the room wouldn’t hold still.
“Oh.” I blinked once. “You’re not Erik.”
His attention shifted to the terminal.
The woman followed his gaze, taking in the open profiles and the spilled champagne.
She said something to him in what sounded like Russian, quiet and precise.
He answered just as softly.
I laughed and pulled my hand back, letting it hover uselessly near my chest. “Sorry. He’s blond too, I think.” I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling, squinting like the memory might be hiding somewhere above me. “Maybe.”
The man took a step toward me.
The woman lifted two fingers.
He stopped.
My stomach pulled tight.
Whatever she had said, he was waiting for her to decide what happened next.
I grabbed a handful of napkins from the desk and started blotting the drink like that was the emergency. “Anyway, I’ll pay for this. The drink, I mean. Not the computer. Unless I broke it, which I really hope I didn’t because my student visa and I are not financially prepared for that.”
The woman watched me make a disaster of the desk for another second, then spoke to the man again.
He moved aside.
“Thank you,” I said, slurring the words just enough. “Seriously. I guess I’ll just go find someone else since Erik is a no-show.”
I squeezed past them before either of them changed their mind and climbed the stairs without running.
Do not run.
Do not look back.
Do not think about the woman who had looked at you like she already knew six different ways she would kill you.
The hallway spat me back into the club’s heat and bass. For a second, the noise hit so hard I nearly stumbled for real.
Good.
I used it.
I wove through the crowd with one hand out, brushing shoulders, murmuring apologies, letting the drunk-blonde act carry me toward coat check.
The woman behind the counter looked at my tag and moved to retrieve my coat.
I kept my smile loose and stupid while my pulse tried to break my ribs.
A man appeared near the far side of the bar.
Not staring. Not openly.
But he had been downstairs. I was almost sure of it.
The coat-check woman returned and handed me my trench. “Have a good night.”
“Trying,” I said, and I gave her a messy little salute before turning away.
The second my coat was on, I moved.
I made it through the front door and onto the sidewalk, where cool air hit my skin like a slap.