Chapter 1 – Neon Blood and Broken Memory

The UV light paints my skin in jagged streaks of violent violet and toxic green. The bass from the concealed speakers beneath the acrylic stage doesn’t just vibrate; it fractures the air, rattling the ribcages of the three hundred sweating bodies below me. I arch my back around the freezing chrome pole, letting my platinum wig cascade over my shoulders, playing the exact role they pay a premium for: mindless, pliable, beautiful. A glittering distraction. But while they stare at the curve of my hips, my eyes are locked on the elevated VIP booths suspended above the dance floor like steel cages.

Target number six, Julian Thorne, is swirling a glass of amber liquid in Booth Four. He likes his whiskey neat, his tailored suits imported, and his women completely stripped of their willpower. I know this. I have the ledger.

My set ends to a chorus of hungry, chaotic cheers. I grab a sheer silk robe from the backstage hook, tying it loosely as I step off the platform and vanish into the velvet-lined corridors of the backstage labyrinth. The VIP service station is two levels up, but I take a calculated detour through the basement’s restricted corridor. The air down here shifts abruptly, the heavy stench of sweat and expensive cologne giving way to the sharp, clinical smell of bleach and ozone. I press my spine against the frosted glass of the door labeled ‘Staff Clinic’. Through a sliver of the cracked door frame, I see her.

A girl is laid out on a steel examination table. She can’t be older than twenty. Her eyes are rolled back beneath fluttering eyelids, her jaw completely slack. A fresh, bruised puncture mark dots her inner elbow. The same chemical signature. They are still testing it. They are still perfecting the memory-wiping compound right here in the bowels of the club.

My fingernails dig violently into the rough plaster of the wall until the sharp sting in my nail beds forces me to breathe. The sight of the girl’s limp hand hanging off the steel edge perfectly mirrors the fractured image burned into the darkest corner of my mind. I reach into the hidden pocket of my robe, my fingers wrapping tight around a slim, reinforced glass vial. The glass is freezing against my palm, exactly like the medical tray I woke up next to three years ago—stripped of twelve hours of my life, bruised, and later dismissed as a hysterical, drug-seeking dancer by every cop in the precinct. I trace the embossed numbers on the vial’s side with my thumb. The dosage I formulated myself. It isn’t designed to erase memory. It is designed to stop a human heart just enough to perfectly mimic an accidental, tragic overdose. Five predators have already suffered ‘unfortunate accidents’ after visiting this club. Tonight, the port loses a sixth.

I pull away from the clinic and ascend the narrow service stairs, slipping silently into the dim prep room reserved for the upper booths. The bartender is busy flirting with a VIP hostess near the industrial ice machine, his back entirely turned. My tray is already waiting on the steel counter—Thorne’s signature Macallan 25, poured short. I uncap my vial, the faint scent of bitter almonds wafting up. One drop for the sudden nausea. Two for the utter, silent paralysis. Three for the quiet, invisible cessation of breath. I tip the glass vial over the crystal tumbler. Three heavy, perfectly measured drops dissolve instantly into the expensive liquor without altering the color. I stir it with a silver swizzle stick, letting the rhythmic clinking sound soothe the frantic, heavy beating of my heart. I slide the glass onto my velvet-lined serving tray, plastering on my best, empty-headed smile.

I push through the heavy swinging doors and step out onto the neon-drenched VIP balcony. Booth Four is only ten steps away. Thorne is laughing loudly at something another man in a suit just said, leaning back into the leather cushions. I take one step. Two.

Then, a massive shadow detaches itself from the heavy velvet curtains to my right.

A grip like a steel vice closes over my left wrist—the hand balancing the serving tray. The tray doesn’t even tilt. The man holding me has calibrated his brutal force perfectly to freeze my momentum without spilling a single drop of the poisoned whiskey. The heavy, overwhelming scent of cedar, gun oil, and cold sea air washes over me, suffocating the smell of alcohol. I look up, my pulse slamming violently into my ribs.

Roman Voss.

The owner of the club. The phantom king who runs the port’s underworld. He steps out of the shadows and into the ambient purple light, his towering frame blocking my only exit. His pale eyes are entirely dead of warmth, sharp and calculating as they flick from the glass of spiked whiskey, straight into my wide eyes.

"Six is a very greedy number, Miss Calder," Roman murmurs, his voice a low, lethal rumble that cuts straight through the club’s deafening bass. "And I think we are entirely done playing the odds."