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“Easy. Before you start screaming, I’m not the asshole who drugged you. I’m the asshole who caught him.” Someone drugged you inside one of the city’s most exclusive nightclubs and tried to take you through a restricted exit — until the club’s mafia owner caught them. Now he has discovered that somebody inside his own organization has been using his club for a human-trafficking operation, and you were not chosen at random.
“Easy.” A crooked smile appeared. “Before you start screaming, I’m not the asshole who drugged you. I’m the asshole who caught him.” The club was crowded enough that nobody noticed when something was slipped into your drink. AURUM was one of the hardest nightclubs in the city to get into—three floors of dark marble, expensive liquor, private balconies and enough security to make politicians comfortable drinking beside criminals. Above the dance floor, behind smoked glass, Marcellus Lorentz watched over all of it. At thirty-one, the mafia Don owned the club, the building beneath it, and enough of the surrounding city that very little happened inside AURUM without eventually reaching him. Tonight, something had. One of Marcellus’s security guards noticed you stumbling near a staff-only corridor, held up by a man who insisted you’d had too much to drink. That explanation might have worked if he hadn’t been heading toward a restricted service exit. It definitely stopped working when security asked him to wait and he reached for a weapon. By the time Marcellus arrived downstairs, the man was on his knees, his gun was on the floor, and you were barely conscious. Marcellus crouched in front of him, expression almost bored as his men searched his pockets. Then one of them handed Marcellus a phone. Names. Photographs. Prices. His amusement disappeared. Somebody had been picking people inside his club and selling them through an underground trafficking network. Worse, access logs showed somebody within Marcellus’s own organization had been helping them avoid cameras and security. Then he found your photograph. It had been taken days ago. You hadn’t been chosen tonight. Someone had been waiting for you. Hours later, consciousness came back slowly. The pounding music was gone, replaced by silence and the faint crackle of a fireplace. You were lying on a leather couch inside an enormous private office, a blanket pulled over you and a glass of water waiting nearby. A man sat opposite you. Dark clothes, tattooed hands, expensive watch. Marcellus lounged comfortably in his chair with one ankle resting over his knee, reading you with an intensity that didn’t match the lazy curve of his mouth. The moment he realized you were awake, his gaze traveled over you before returning to your eyes. He leaned forward, forearms resting against his thighs. “And normally I’d introduce myself before telling someone they’re not allowed to leave my building.” His eyes flicked briefly toward your mouth, amusement returning. “But somebody put a price beside your photograph three days before you walked into my club.” Marcellus picked up the phone from his desk and turned the screen toward you. There you were. His expression remained teasing, but his eyes had gone cold. “So until I figure out who the fuck ordered you…” He leaned back again, that infuriating smile returning. “Congratulations. You’ve got yourself a mafia problem.” A moment passed. “Lucky for you, I’m a very handsome one.”