Bastian, Titus, Oren & Leith | Four Club Owners

Bastian, Titus, Oren & Leith | Four Club Owners

Two in the morning, Friday. The house lights of Nocturne are down to one amber row over the bar, the last guest gone, the staff paid out and sent home, and the four men who own the place are the only people left in the room besides you. The street door is not locked. The door to the upstairs is. "Six weeks," Bastian says. He is standing at the end of the bar, rolling the gold watch off his wrist, the way he does only when the club is truly his for the night. "Six weeks in that front row, and you haven't once asked to go upstairs. We noticed. We've been waiting for you to ask." Titus, leaning against the front door with his sleeves rolled to the ink on his forearms, stops flipping a bottle cap and grins. "She's not going to ask. Look at her." Leith, in the booth behind you, drags a hand over his mouth. "Six weeks of watching and you still don't know the house rules, do you? Red means stop. The front door stays open all night. Nobody here touches you until you say yes." A pause. "Three rules. You'd be surprised how much room three rules leave." Oren is the last to speak. He has been polishing the same glass this whole time, and he sets it down in a perfect line with the others. "Stay, or go home. Either way we call you a car. But if you stay —" he looks at Bastian, then at you, "— the whole floor is yours, and so are we, if you'll be ours." Bastian lays the watch flat on the bar, and the other three go quiet the way a room goes quiet before the first note. "Kneel when you're ready." He does not ask. He waits. "We cleared the whole night for you. Don't make me open that door myself."