Chapter 4 4

Dual POV: Damian & Elena

Damian's POV

You know what's funny about obsession?

It sneaks in dressed like admiration. One minute, you're applauding a dancer for being "professional" because she doesn't faint at the sight of a hundred drunk men throwing cash; the next, you're thinking about the curve of her mouth while your brother is trying to explain the stock situation with our suppliers.

And God help me I was thinking about her. The dancer. Elena.

I caught myself replaying the way she turned me down the other night. Not harshly, not rudely just flat, calm. Like I was a speck of dust she'd flicked off her shoulder. The entire city bends when I cough, yet she just looked me dead in the eye and said:

"No."

Do you know how addictive that word can be when nobody dares say it to you?

"Are you even listening to me?" Marco's voice dragged me back into reality. He had that big-brother tone, the one that makes me feel like I'm still twelve.

"Not particularly," I muttered, leaning back in the leather seat of his car. We'd just pulled away from the port, and all I could think about was when the hell he was taking me back to that club.

Marco sighed, long-suffering. "You can't keep drowning in anger twenty-four-seven, Dami. This place will rot you. I thought the club might loosen you up. You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

I enjoyed it. Right. That was one word for the fire currently twisting my gut.

"Yeah," I said, smirking out the window. "I enjoyed the lighting. Very soothing. Especially when it bounced off that dancer's"

Marco groaned. "You're hopeless."

Maybe. But hopeless with purpose.

I couldn't stop myself. The image of her, masked, unreachable, untouchable, hips moving like sin itself had rooted into me. She wasn't just a dancer. She was a dare. And I've never been good at walking away from a dare.

Elena's POV

The night air was sticky, humid, the kind that clung to skin and made perfume turn sour. Clara had left me not ten minutes ago, jogging off toward the bus stop with a cheery wave. "Call you when I get home!" she shouted over her shoulder.

I told her to text instead. She never listened.

Now it was just me and the half-lit street. My shoes clicked against the pavement, steady, unhurried. My mask and my other face was tucked into my bag, hidden like a guilty secret. On stage, I was untouchable, a phantom no one could reach. Off stage, stripped of lights and music, I was just... Elena.

I felt them before I saw them. The prickle at the back of my neck. The way silence thickened, swallowing the usual shuffle of night creatures.

"Evening, sweetheart."

Two men stepped from the shadows, dressed in plain clothes that didn't fool me for a second. Their eyes were too sharp, their stance too deliberate. Wolves pretending to be strays.

I stopped walking, squared my shoulders, lifted my chin. Calm, untouchable. I had perfected that look.

"Can I help you?" I asked coolly.

The taller one smiled without warmth. "Actually, yes. There's a little job we think you'd be perfect for."

I laughed once, short and sharp. "You've mistaken me for someone who takes jobs from strangers."

The shorter man pulled something from his pocket. Not a gun worse. A phone. On the screen, a picture of Clara leaving the club earlier, smiling, unsuspecting.

My chest tightenedade my stomach twist. I forced a laugh, thin and brittle. "If this is about private dances, you're wasting your breath. I don't take those offers."

"That's what makes you valuable," the other hissed, leaning close. I caught the faint metallic tang of cigarettes and gunpowder on him. "You'll do this one. Not for just the money. For your friend."

The name they dropped made the air knock out of my lungs. My throat tightened, and suddenly the room felt too small, too sharp.

"What-what did you just say?" My voice cracked, betraying the fear I tried to hide.

The taller man held up his phone. A blurred picture flashed on the screen-my friend, bound, terrified, a bruise already blooming on her cheek. My blood iced over.

"Dance for who we say. Get close enough. Or she won't be breathing by sunrise."

My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through. I wanted to scream, claw at them, anything-but I couldn't. Not when her face stared back at me from that screen.

My mouth was dry as sand. "And if I refuse?"

The taller one smiled slow, a wolf savoring the cornered rabbit. "Then you'll have more than one body to mourn."

"You'll dance," the taller one said. "Not on stage. For someone private. You'll earn more money in one night than in eight months at that place.

The shorter man swiped the screen. Another photo Clara again, this time from across the street near her bus stop.

"You won't say no," he said simply.

I swallowed. My throat was dry, but my voice stayed steady. "I don't scare easy."

"Good," the taller one said. "Then we understand each other."

They slipped back into the shadows as quickly as they had appeared, leaving me standing in the middle of the street, spine stiff, fingers digging crescents into my palms.

For Clara, I told myself. For Clara, I'll play their game.

But God help them if they think they've broken me.

Damian's POV

You know that feeling when something's too good to be a coincidence? That's what hit me when I walked into the club again the next night.

The music pulsed, bodies swayed, but my eyes went hunting for one person. And there she was. Dancing, masked, untouchable. Only... something was different.

Her movements were perfect, but her eyes hell, her eyes were flames behind glass.

And I knew. Something was off. Something I wanted to break open and devour.

Elena's POV

The mask slipped over my face, hiding everything. Calm, untouchable. That was my armor. No one could see the fear gnawing at my ribs, the bargain I'd been forced into.

But I felt his eyes on me. That hunting, Sharp, mocking, impossible to ignore.

He wasn't like the others who stared at me with hunger. His gaze was heavier, more dangerous. Like he wanted to peel back the mask and see the girl beneath.

I couldn't let him.

Not when I was already tangled in a web I hadn't chosen.

Damian's POV

She thinks she's hiding. She thinks she's calm, untouchable.

Cute.

But I see her. And the more she tries to stay out of reach, the more I'm certain I'll be the one to catch her.

But there is something wrong, her movement is flawed and not calculated. I wish I could ask her...as if she would confide in me. And for the first time since I started coming here I hated the lighting it isn't doing justice at all and I really hate it.