From: Attorney General - New York State

AG: All set. The team is ready whenever you are. 

Me: Good job. Let's do it tomorrow. 😎 Excited!🤩

AG: You owe me your first born.😏

Me: 💩 If you're prepared to fight Jennifer Rothschild...

AG: Fuck you. 

Me: I know. Millions of admirers want to. Get in the line and wait for it to never happen. 💁‍♀️

AG: What a narc.🙄

Me: I try. 

The rim of my martini glass feels cool against my mouth, the olive brine's sharp tang mingles with the smooth gin and vermouth as I relish a slow sip. A mix of muted conversations, heavy laughs, excited yells and cheers, and the steady thrum of bass reverberates through the polished wood surface of the bar I'm seated at. I lower my phone on my lap and stare at the dance floor, watching the figures crush their bodies against each other, seducing each other, and letting themselves loose against each other in the faded, sultry light.

Devil's Den is the place where the world's most almighty transform into less defined objects, more primal, more normal, shedding their vigilantly tailored public personas and swapping it with something unguarded. Something raw. Something unhinged. It's a weird dichotomy—the manner they cling to their calculated facade with such powerful desperation in public, only to abandon it all along with any inhibitions the moment they step into this place, which Claire describes as Satan's lair.

It's an accurate description for this place is a universe apart from everything outside its walls—not even Legacy Lounge is its match because there people only add more to their facades unlike here where they come to shed it. I watch them—Hollywood big leagues, business titans, political kingmakers, diplomats, all diminished to mere mortals and behaving like the predators, the animals they are as they grind themselves against each other and groove—some in couples and some in groups— in the sway of expensive alcohol and music.

They're enjoying their freedom. 

Me? 

I am reminiscing about the last time I sat here alone. In the same seat, with the same drink in my hand, in the same dress, and in the same pair of Roger Vivier. 

What has changed since? 

Me. 

Completely. 

Back then I was single. Drunk. Contemplating my purpose in life. Jetlagged. 

Fast forward to today, I am married to the man of my dreams, barely three sips of dirty martini down, and no more contemplating my purpose in life. 

There's also the absence of Darina next to me who last time was luring me to go on a path of absolute destruction.

My phone vibrates again. This time from a text notification from my brother. I bark out a laugh, reading it.

From: Baby Brother 👶😈💗

Chase: What the does this "👅💦💦" mean?

Me: Are you and Inessa sexting? 🤣

Chase: Meaning.

Me: Aren't you one of the key partners of my husband in an AI venture?🫢 Go ask that app. 🙄

Chase: It's giving several answers. Not one in general.

Me: Hmm. Remind me to train my husband's team at sexting so they can fix that. 😁

Chase: MEANING.

Me: Ouch. 🤬 Those shouty capitals are hurting my eyes.

Chase: Forget I asked. Rhett just replied. What does this mean "🫦"?

Me: Sensual lip biting? Flirting? 😂🤣💀

Chase: Pathetic.

Me: I'm at Devil's Den. Stop bothering me.

Chase: Don't get drunk. Be safe. Drop me a text when you're home.

Me: Will do, grandpa. 😘 I love you. 💋🩷🥰😘

Chase: ❤️

Me: Stop!!!! My brother used an emoji for me? 🥹

Chase: Good night. 

"This is for you, Miss." The bartender's voice from behind makes me spin in my bar chair to face him.

He hands me the black envelope that I can recognize even with my eyes closed. A smile spreads on my face as I accept it and open it to read the card inside. It's handwritten.

104 days ago. At 11:45 pm...

I flip the card around. There's nothing. "Did some other envelope accompany this?"

"This." The bartender offers me a polite smile as he lays before me a black velvet box that has a silver satin ribbon tied to it.

I open it to find a lone pair of Roger Vivier—the exact replica of the one from the other night and the one I'm wearing. Only that this one's not exactly a footwear. It's a box shaped like that.

The emblematic jewel buckle with crystal flowers has a button on it. I press it and there are small square-shaped neatly folded chits.

I open the first one.

... I lost my mind, and gained my lifeline—you.

Aw. My smile grows wider. I roll my bottom lip between my teeth as I open the second one.

... You ruined me, and I continue to love every second of it.

The third one.

... You flipped my universe. It's still spinning and I'll never let it stop.

The fourth one.

... You became the beautiful chaos I crave. Became the clarity I needed.

The fifth one.

... My world went silent so all I could hear was you.

The sixth one.

... You took over my life and became the only priority I'll ever have.

The seventh one.

... You became my universe's singularity, yanking every bit of me into your gravity.

The eighth one.

... I realized you were the missing variable in my system's equation and the solution I had no idea I was looking for.

The ninth.

... Everything else ceased to matter for me. Possessing you—wholly—became my only goal.

The tenth.

... I stopped existing and started living.

The eleventh one.

... I became your shadow. Bound to your soul until the end.

The twelfth one.

... Your breath became mine. You became mine. Irrevocably. Completely. And I'll murder to keep it that way.

The thirteenth one.

... your voice became the only lullaby that could give me peaceful nights.

The fourteenth one.

... You became the 1 in my binary that my 0 would be useless without.

I don't realize I'm holding my breath by the time I open the last one, which I realize was meant to be the last for a reason.

... You didn't just appear into my world—you invaded it, conquered it until all I could see, breathe, and feel was you. Gave me back the significant part of me that had gone missing for eleven long years, forcing me to live with a void. You turned out to be the star in my unending cosmos, my light that guides me through the void. I love you, my little ogre. With every atom and subatom of my existence.

I put my hand on my heart and sigh. Only my husband can come up with something so thoughtful... so geeky... and so out of the world. What did I do to deserve that man?

An icy sensation trickles down the bare skin of my backless dress, inciting the goosebumps on my flesh as a presence confiscates my space—a dark, electric presence that cuts through the haze of music and alcohol. 

I feel a gaze on me—a gaze as if they're a pair of hands, invasive and cold, freezing me with their touch as they glide over my skin to lay a claim on me. 

I don't know if it's just the bass of the club that's vibrating in my bones or the dark rhythm of my heartbeats pounding against my ribs or the dangerous, all-too consuming presence, or the pair of eyes on me that makes me suddenly need support. 

I lean against the bar, my fingers tightening around my Roger Vivier heel shaped box.

"A delicate little doe all alone in this dark jungle full of predators is practically begging to have jaws seize her neck." The voice, a sensuously low and dark husk, slithers into my ears like a serpent.

The words coil around my neck, choking it, making it a struggle for me to breathe. His warm breath fanning my neck is a shark contrast to the chilling intensity that his words hold.

I don't flinch, don't react. I take a slow sip of my dirty martini, savoring the bitter liquid glide down my throat, unchoking it from the impact of his words. "I might not be an easy prey"

"That's the thing I enjoy about hunting. The best prey is never easy to catch." The cold amusement in his voice makes my skin prickle with a strange sense of awareness.

I turn to face the presence. It's darkness wrapped in the guise of suave exterior and lethal good looks that should come with a warning sign—RUN. HIDE. NEVER COME OUT. 

But I wouldn't be who I am if I were afraid of danger... of predators as powerful as they might be. 

I crave darkness. Crave the thrill of knowing I can't escape and submitting my very willing surrender. Crave to be chased and hunted and caught and ravished.

He traps me with his arms stretching out to have his fingers wrapping around the bar's edge. "Don't you agree?" Those eyes—those hauntingly beautiful gaze, lifeless and muted—glimmer like razor-edged obsidian shards meant to cut deep.

I tilt my head, studying the fine specimen in front of me as if he's a muse on display for me to take inspiration from and paint. "Never seen any thrill in hunting. I wouldn't know."

"But I do. I can tell being hunted is what thrills you," he leans in closer, bridging the gap between us, his hand reaching out to sweep the strands of my hair behind my ear before returning to grip the bar, his breath heated against my ear. "I can see it in your eyes that it's the danger you're drawn to. The rush, the adrenaline, the mix of excitement and fear, and the feeling of being pursued by a predator who's out there to destroy you that thrills you. You're not an easy prey, but you're a prey nonetheless."

"And you are the said danger?"

"You tell me," he murmurs, his voice dripping with malicious mirth. "Is your heart hammering against your chest at my proximity? Do you feel that thrill in your body, like you want to run and hide, but you know you won't succeed because I'll hunt you down and take my sweet time devouring you bit by bit?"

Before I can even fully process his words, he sinks his teeth in my sensitive skin below my neck and bites it... painfully hard—like a wild animal hungry for the taste of my flesh. I wouldn't be surprised if he has drawn out blood. He pulls away, but not fully. He's facing me now. His Greek god-like face barely inches away from mine. The way he's looking at me right now with those deadly eyes of an anarchist that feel like a noose around my throat—tightening with every passing second.

"I have a husband."

"So?"

"So I might not be into the sick thrill of being hunted and devoured by predators." I counter with a steady voice.

His eyes glimmer with that classic predatory gleam as he puts a finger low on my back and drags it up. I barely suppress a moan. "You wouldn't be sitting here alone like a bait in this kind of slutty dress that should be banned to wear in public if what you claim had an ounce of truth in it, little doe."

"My husband is supposed to love the dress. It's what I was wearing when we reunited. It's a memory I'm sure he'd like to treasure."

"Pretty sure he'd burn the dress the moment you return home and keep the ashes as the said memory he'd like to treasure."

I suppress a grin. "Is this your usual? Routine I mean? Find a lonely girl, promise her a few thrills, and hope she'll spread her legs for you?"

He tilts his head slightly, amusement dancing in his dead eyes. "Spread your legs so I can say I have a 100% strike rate with my routine."

"I said I have a husband."

"Join me at my private booth upstairs. I will make you forget him."

"No amount of seduction can make me forget him."

"Good. I'm not interested in seduction anyway," he leans so he's a breath away from my mouth. "I want to bend you over and make my cock become your religion so you'd worship every thrust. I want to fuck you so raw, over and over, that you'd have to learn how to stand again. I know you want it. Need it."

I swallow, causing his gaze to avert to my throat. He's looking there as if he wants to sink his teeth deep into my skin and tear it until blood is trickling all over my porcelain skin. "You are quite cocksure."

"One of us has to."

"I don't even know you."

"You don't need to know me for what we both want from each other."

"There are several preys out there. Why do you want me?"

He brushes his knuckles over my cheek, oh-so-softly. "Told you already. There's no fun chasing an easy catch."

"Not interested." I try to push him away with my hands firm on the mighty muscular wall of his chest.

He curls an arm around my waist and tugs me hard against his chest, yanking me out of my bar chair. The sudden gesture makes me squeal in surprise. "Will it only be your husband cock you'd allow your tight little cunt to swallow?"

"Yes," I smile, my cheeks flushing, as I try to push him away. "You can't touch a woman without her consent, you know?"

"I can't help it when the said woman happens to be my favorite prey," he whispers firmly, bending his head and sinking his teeth into my earlobe. Again. I wince from the delicious pain that bursts into me.

"Dance with me." I slip my fingers in his and move out of his hold to proceed towards the dance floor.

He doesn't budge of course.

I turn around to watch his cold, detached eyes studying me as if weighing my request. "I don't dance."

"My husband doesn't either, but he doesn't mind just being there for me as I groove and grind against him."

"Someone might think you want me to replace that husband of yours."

The tension sizzling between us intensifies. So does the electric current that buzzes in the air. It makes it hard for me to breathe.

I bite my lower lip, grinning wide. "You can't even if you're incarnated several times in a row. Do you want me to spread my legs and help you maintain your 100% strike rate? Or perhaps you have changed your mind and suddenly want easy prey?"

He doesn't respond but watches me with his dead, unfathomable eyes that have mirth flaring in them.

I push back, detaching my fingers from him, silently wincing at the loss of his warm touch, and take a deliberate step away from him. "What a shame if it's the latter."

His gaze darkens, narrowing slightly with every step I take back to create space between us. He doesn't say anything, just keeps watching me with the same predatory ferocity as if he's a voyeur and I'm his favorite act. A smirk plays on my lips as I keep walking back, one step after another, moving away from him with sensuously slow steps and into the heart of the dance floor. The crowd is thick with bodies grooving and grinding, but my eyes remain only on him.

I let my body groove slowly to the latest TikTok favorite—a sexy remix of Ariana's Step On Up and Britney's Gimme More playing in the background.

Shedding all my inhibitions that I generally tend to have on the dance floor unless I'm drunk, I let the music guide me as I run my hands through my loose hair with my eyes never leaving him. 

I tilt my head back slightly and push my hair back to deliberately expose my neck to him.

Predators are fascinated with that part of the body. It calls to them—it's their natural instinct to squeeze it between their jaws or fingers and restrict the airflow of the prey. They get their sick thrill out of watching their prey struggling from lack of air supply. Take deep satisfaction watching their prey claw and fight with every might to be freed and spared only to realize there's no freedom. They love watching their prey eventually resign themselves to their fate of being devoured and go slack in their hold until the last bit of breath leaves their body. 

I know it so well because I have witnessed that thrill in my husband's sadistic cerulean eyes when he's almost crushing my windpipe just to see the fear in my eyes. 

There's none of course. 

I know he wouldn't kill me no matter how hard he goes.

The gaze of the dark presence at the bar follows my every movement, his jaw clenching as he witnesses the interest of people dancing around me becoming centered at me. He's barely restraining himself from swallowing the distance between us and causing a complete mayhem before claiming me raw as he has so shamelessly declared as his intention for tonight. He isn't just watching me. 

His dark gaze is devouring me, his strong arms crossed over his chest, biceps rippling and straining against his black untucked shirt over a pair of blue faded denims, the forefinger of his left hand tapping against his right bicep. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

It's not out of anxiety, no. 

He's bidding time, counting seconds to how far I'd go as he waits for the perfect moment to pounce and seize my neck. 

I let my hands glide down my neck from my hair, over my collarbone, and trail it slowly across the curve of my breasts, my waist, and the back up again.

The music throbs around me. The lights flash in rhythm with every pulsating beat. I sway my hips, moving myself in slow, sensuous movement that I know is meant to drive him crazy. His gaze is glued to me, intense and suffocating and dark, watching every glide of my hand. I can practically feel the ferocious tension and need to seize me radiating off his mighty frame in waves. 

I bring my hands back up, moving my fingers through my locks again, and smiling at him with my teeth nipping at my lower lip where I direct my fingers to next. 

Slowly. I brush my bottom lip with the pad of my thumb, maintaining my eyes on him the entire time, challenging him to replace mine with his.

I crook my forefinger in his direction and move it in a slow, deliberate motion, beckoning my predator to follow my provocation.

It only takes a heartbeat. 

Before I know it, he's moving, swallowing the space between us as he cuts through the crowd just like a predator closes in on its prey. There's a raw, unyielding look in his sapphire stare as he confiscates my space and steps into my territory, yanking my body to him with a force that steals the air from my lungs. 

I gasp, but it isn't fear that's making my heart race—it's the primal excitement, the thrill of being devoured. His hand around my waist tightens in an inescapable hold, trapping me against him, the other hand tangles in my hair, drawing me close so there's no room for me to breathe without inhaling him, no space between us, just the heat of his hard, beastly frame permeating into mine. The bare skin on my back where his palm rests is burning as if he has set it on fire.

"I won't let you get away with this very public provocation," his voice is a rough, animal-like growl against my ear. There's a lethal edge to his words, a deadly promise that makes me shudder in his hold.

My lips curl into a smile. "The whole intention of the very public provocation is that you won't let me get away. My husband never lets me get away with it."

A look of pure, primal, and unfiltered desire, blended with something super dark, something that makes my pulse jump in anticipation appears in his eyes. "How does your husband remain sane with all these provocations, hmm? Or perhaps it's your intention to drive him crazy so you're free to be the prey to all the predators out there?" He murmurs, his warm breath prickling my skin.

"Not all. Just one predator. You. Dance with me." 

The air around is thick, a perfect cocoon of pulsing lights, smoke, and darkness that makes everyone else disappear for me—leaving just him in my sights. Dancing with this suffocatingly dark presence, every inch of his mighty frame pressed against me, is like volunteering to step into an active volcano. His grip on my hips is unyielding, possessive even, guiding me to groove with the rhythm of the music. 

He doesn't like dancing, he didn't lie about that. 

But he knows dancing. Like a pro who's learned it to seduce and trap his prey. His body grooves against mine a slow, measured grind, every roll of his pelvis against mine shooting a pulse of liquid heat through my pores that I feel seeping deep all the way down to my very core. It's like he's branding me with his touch.

It won't be wrong to say I'm dancing with the devil right now.

Blue and red lasers slice through the darkness, making his devilishly handsome face appear more evil—more dark, more predatory. I can feel the hard contours of his body, the restrained tension coils beneath his skin, as if he's holding back the darkest and the most dangerous version of him trapped beneath the surface. And it's not just his body that has me spiraling out of control. It's the way he moves—calculated, as if he's savoring every touch, every moment, every grind of his hips against me. It's the way he holds me, caging me to him with invisible chains that's wrapping me around him. The way his fingers dig into my skin, marking it with just the exact amount of pressure to shoot a thrill through me, I know that he's enjoying this, enjoying watching me lose myself in his darkness.

"You feel that, little doe? Feel what your mere existence is doing to me?" He leans in, his heated whisper hot against my ear, rough, dark, and dripping with malicious intention before he pushes his wet tongue inside it.

As his pelvis rolls against mine, his erection grinds into me. Again. Making me shiver with a thrill that's laced with the molten heat stirring in my core and soaring through my veins. It's stripping me of my ability to think straight.

He presses himself harder against me. "Even with this piece of scrap you call a dress on, I can feel your cunt is soaking wet. It's drenched. I can smell your arousal. You want me bad. Why delay the inevitable with this dance that seems like your way of foreplay? It's nothing but a sheer waste of my precious time."

I laugh, rising on my toes even with my heels on so my lips can finally brush against his ear. "You're indulging me, which means I am worth your precious time."

"I am in for every effort that will help me succeed in stealing you away from your husband."

"This is a good start." A dark hunger coils tighter in my abdomen. 

His hard body pressed against me makes me acutely aware of the brute strength of his body. I can feel the heat that emanates from him and smell the dangerously intoxicating scent of his trademark cologne mingled with his innately male perfume. His hands stray up and down my spine in a sensuous caress.

He chuckles for the first time since I felt him behind me, the sound low and dangerous. "Come upstairs with me."

I shake my head, my fingers circling his hair on the back of his head. "Nuh-uh. We're not going anywhere. Kiss me."

"Kiss you?"

"Kiss me."

I cannot restrain a little shiver of excitement when he slants his mouth over mine and initiates a slow, drugging kiss. His mouth is firm, demanding an immediate response. I give it right away. My entire body trembles when he slides his tongue into my mouth and explores it with devastating efficiency until I sag against him and lose myself completely to his touch. Curling my arms around his neck, I kiss him like I've been starving for his mouth for days, allowing myself to drown in the heady sensation of his mighty fine taste and smell. I grind my hips against him, brushing his crotch with my knees.

"Keep doing that and I'll drag you to upstairs by hair if I have to and fuck you so brutally rough you'll feel me in your every movement for days," he murmurs thickly against my mouth.

The way he says it makes my knees go weak. Letting out a shaky breath, I slide my hands and eyes down his chest, pausing to linger over the solid muscle of his chest. "That's my intention anyway. Being taken gently has never been my thing. Ask my husband and he'll tell you. I'm twisted in my mind like that. Some might consider it fucked up. I like being manhandled and taken with a barbaric force that would make my skin tingle and body parts ache in the aftermath for days."

A deliciously low growl-like groan rumbles in his chest that reverberates against mine, and his hand tightens in my hair, yanking my head back just enough so that I'm forced to meet his gaze. "You can't keep your mouth shut even if your life depends on it, can you?"

"Why would I keep it shut? I am just telling you my primal desires."

"Not worried I might ruin you?"

"Why would I bother myself with that when I know for certain you're going to ruin me anyway and I'm going to love every second of it?" I rise on my toes again and tug his lower lip between my teeth, swaying myself in his arms as fierce desire pounds through me.

An aching hunger is laced in his own eyes that drips off his skin and seeps into mine making it painful for me to survive without having him touch me deep inside.

"Start ruining me. Now." Taking his hand, I guide it lower.

He shamelessly slips it between my thighs under my dress, rubbing his fingers over my wet thong before he parts it and has them explore my slit. "So. Fucking. Wet. Christ! Your fingers are soaking me. Does the idea of being hunted turn you on so much?" His voice is thick with lust as his intrusive gaze pierces me even in the darkness.

I grin, clenching my muscles around his fingers. "Didn't realize it until today. Maybe in my subconscious I knew, your highness."

He chuckles, kissing my jaw. "Whatever happened to playing along? You were doing so good, tesoro."

"How did you know it was one of my fantasies? Strangers at the bar."

"I know all your fantasies," he responds with a cocky grin, that predator's gleam never leaving his gaze as he pulls back his fingers and shoves it harder, rocking my entire body, and making me gasp so loud it's embarrassing.

I look around, wide-eyed, glad no one can see what we're up to. It's too smoky and dark beneath our waist for anyone to see what his fingers are up to. It's like we're all standing in clouds. I know my obnoxious husband had it done on his special request. He knew this was going to happen and he wanted to make me experience this while not risking anyone catching me like this.

"Areston, please... I want you. Now. Take me upstairs." My voice comes out to be needier than I was expecting. 

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