The photo was gone by morning.
Selene had left it on the desk. Unmoved.
Now? Just an empty space.
No photo. No rose. No proof.
But the scent lingered.
Cheap cologne and cut stems. A phantom signature.
She knew better than to panic.
Power didn't scream. It whispered.
By noon, Cam had locked down the camera feeds.
Nothing. Not a blip.
Whoever was slipping through their systems wasn't doing it by accident.
"This is tech we don't have," he muttered. "He's not just creeping. He's planning."
Selene stared at the monitor wall.
"All this time I thought I was the spider."
Cam looked at her. "You still are."
She didn't answer.
Because spiders don't get caught in their own webs.
And yet—
Here she was.
Tangled.
The club was closed for deep clean.
But Selene had a different use for the empty stage.
She called in the dancers.
Girls and boys. Half made-up, half asleep.
"Sit," she said.
They did.
Despite the fact that she was, she claimed, "I'm not here to scare you," but rather to defend the things we had built.
Eyes shifted.
"Someone has slipped inside our family. Someone who doesn't belong. And they're using our lives like threads—pulling until we unravel."
She walked to the edge of the stage.
"But we won't unravel. Not unless we let them."
"Do we know who?" someone asked.
"No. Not yet."
A voice piped up from the corner.
"What about the notebook?"
Selene paused.
Her gaze swept the room. "What do you know about it?"
The girl shrugged. "June showed me a page once. Said she was collecting truths."
"About?"
"Everyone."
Silence.
Someone stood up.
It was Nico. One of the floor boys. Pretty. Fast hands. Faster mouth.
"Are you telling us this place ain't safe anymore?"
Selene raised an eyebrow. "When was it ever?"
Nico smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Point taken."
Back in her office, Cam was waiting.
He tossed a file on the desk. "Background on the ring." Selene opened it.
Snake-shaped. Silver. Custom made by a defunct New York jeweler who only made seven pieces before dying in prison.
Only three of the seven had ever resurfaced.
One had belonged to a nightclub kingpin in Brooklyn. Murdered ten years ago.
Another was seized in a cartel raid.
The third?
Auctioned to a private buyer in Miami.
Selene leaned back.
"What's the name?"
Cam smirked. "Anonymous. Paid in crypto. Picked it up wearing gloves."
She shut the file.
"Someone with money and a reason to stay hidden."
"Someone obsessed with your club."
"No. With me."
That night, she took a bath in silence.
No music. No candles.
Just water and thoughts.
The kind of silence that stripped the lies off a person.
Her hand drifted across her stomach. Found the scar. Faint, curved, old.
A knife wound. Years ago. From a man she should've killed faster.
But she didn't.
And now he might be back.
Only this time, he wasn't holding a blade.
He was holding her life like a string—and tugging it loose.
Her phone buzzed once.
A message from a number she didn't save.
"Still taste like strawberries?"
Her heart stopped. Only one man ever said that. And he was supposed to be dead.
She dropped the phone.
Cam found her pacing the dance floor an hour later.
"I need you to listen," she said, her voice tight.
He nodded.
She handed him the phone.
He read the message. His jaw locked.
"Is it him?"
"I just don't know."
"Then we find out."
"No," she said. "We bait him."
Cam hesitated.
"Selene—"
"You want to win a game like this?" she said, eyes lit with something dark. "Then let him think he's already winning."
She wore red that night.
Red lips. Red silk. A slit up the thigh sharp enough to draw blood.
The club reopened like nothing had happened.
Lights. Beats and Dollars flying.
But under it all—tension.
She danced slower. Smiled wider.
Waiting.
Watching.
The message had no reply.
No second ping.
But someone was watching her. She could feel it.
Eyes on her back like a blade.
She let them look.
Let them dream.
Let them think she was soft again.
Because the second they touched her—
She'd remind them what it felt like to bleed.
She went home alone.
By choice.
Left her driver halfway and walked the last block in heels that hurt.
She wanted to feel something raw.
Even if it was just pain.
At her door, she paused.
It was unlocked.
She pulled her piece, held it steady, stepped inside.
The house was Dark and quiet.
One flick of the switch.
There was nothing there.
Another click.
Light flickered to life.
The living room was untouched. The kitchen too.
But her bedroom—
Her sheets were folded. Neatly.
A wine glass on the nightstand.
Red lipstick on the rim.
Not her shade.
She stepped closer.
A note lay on the pillow.
"You look better in bruises."
There was no name on it. Just a smear of red. She sat at the edge of her bed. Then she laughed.
One sharp, bitter sound.
He wasn't hiding anymore. He was waiting.
An hour later, she called June's mother.
She hadn't spoken to her since the funeral.
The woman answered on the third ring.
"Selene?"
"It's me."
She paused.
"You found something."
"Maybe." They went silence.
"She ever talk about someone named Vex?"
The woman inhaled sharply.
"She wrote that name in her diary once. Scared me half to death. Said he knew things about you."
"About me?"
"Yes."
"Like what?"
"She said he was the reason you stopped dancing."
Selene froze.
No one knew that.
Not Cam. Not anyone.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. I burned the diary after. It felt…wrong. Like saying his name cursed the air."
Selene hung up without saying goodbye.
Her hands shook.
Her legs did not.
She stood up.
And she poured a drink.
Something old. Something strong.
She knocked it back in one shot.
Then she picked up her phone.
And dialed a number she hadn't touched in six years.
It rang once then Twice.
Then a voice, "Boss Lady," a voice purred on the other end. "I was wondering when you'd remember me."