The bar's neon lights throbbed like a fevered pulse, casting Xander's incredulous face in garish hues as Caleb's grip tightened on his shoulder. "Sit. Now," Caleb ordered, the command slicing through the bass-heavy air. Xander slumped into the velvet booth, muttering obscenities into his gin. Jaden merely adjusted his glasses, the corner of his mouth twitching. "This should be enlightening."
Across the room, Margaret's talon-like nails dug into Luna's forearm. "Smile, you little ingrate. You're about to earn your keep."
Wang swaggered into their circle, his cologne a noxious cloud. "An apology won't cut it, sweetheart." His gaze crawled over Luna's embroidered qipao. "But a dance… Let's say five minutes on that pole buys your clinic's future."
Margaret's eyes glittered with malice. "Well? The Carter name hangs in the balance."
Luna's laugh was wind chimes in a hurricane. "Five minutes? Let's make it ten."
The crowd parted as she ascended the stage, fingers trailing the brass pole like a lover's cheek. The opening chords of a guzheng cover of "Paint It Black" thrummed through the speakers.
Xander choked on his drink. "Since when does Thorn's wife—"
"Shut up and watch," Jaden murmured, tracking Caleb's silhouette melting into the shadows.
Luna's first spin defied physics—a silk-winged moth arcing through moonlight. Her qipao's slit revealed not flesh but the glint of a dagger strapped to her thigh. The crowd's jeers died mid-snicker.
"Christ," Xander breathed as she inverted into a gravity-defying crucifix pose, hair sweeping the stage. "She's not dancing. She's declaring war."
In the VIP booth, Margaret's rouge cracked like dried blood. "The little witch is enjoying this."
Wang's jowls quivered as Luna descended in a spiral, knees grazing his table. "My office," he rasped. "Now."
—
The back hallway reeked of stale beer and bad decisions. Luna paused at the staff restroom, catching Caleb's reflection in the smudged mirror.
"Following me, Mr. Thorn?"
He crowded her against damp tiles, the dagger now pressed to his jugular. "You missed a cue." His thumb brushed the qipao's mandarin collar. "Three spins before the backflip—your grandmother's style."
Her blade nicked skin. "You've seen the tapes."
"I commissioned them." His lips grazed the pearl button at her throat. "Your mother's competition in '98. You dance like her. Fight like her. Kill like her."
The door rattled under Wang's fist. "Playing hard to get, sweetmeat?"
Caleb's smile was a live wire. "Shall we educate him?"
—
The ensuing chaos unfolded with operatic precision. Wang's scream as Luna's stiletto found his instep. Margaret's shriek when Jaden materialized with subpoenas. Xander's whoop as Caleb's fist remodeled the financier's jaw.
Through it all, Luna stood serene as a sword saint, adjusting her hairpin. "The clinic's funding clears at midnight."
Caleb licked blood from his knuckles. "Along with Wang's offshore accounts."
—
Later, in the Bentley's womb-like darkness, Luna traced the hieroglyph of bruises on Caleb's neck. "You interfered."
"You anticipated it." He pressed a key into her palm—the dance studio above Sweet Haven Patisserie glinted in the metal teeth. "Your mother's tapes need a proper home."
Her laughter was velvet-wrapped steel. "Bribery, Mr. Thorn?"
"Investment," he corrected, mouth finding the qipao's undone clasp.
As the car glided past neon smears, Highland City's elite scrambled to rewrite narratives. Photographers captured Luna's triumphant exit, Caleb's hand branding her waist—a tableau that would dominate tomorrow's front pages.
Margaret's subsequent nervous breakdown played out in private, her screams muffled by moving vans carting off the Carter heirlooms.
But in the studio's mirrored sanctum, none of it mattered. Here, amid the scent of rosin and revenge, Luna spun her mother's legacy into something fiercer.
And when Caleb came bearing chamomile tea and brass knuckles, she let him stay—not as protector, but as witness to the phoenix rising from society's ashes.
The restroom's flickering bulb cast jaundiced light over cracked tiles as Luna pressed a damp paper towel to her smudged eyeliner. Neon seeped beneath the door—pulsing red like an open wound—as the bassline of some synth-pop atrocity vibrated the sink's rusted pipes. She'd chosen this particular hellhole for its lack of surveillance, not anticipating how the stench of urinal cakes would mingle with her jasmine perfume.
The door slammed against the wall with a sound like a gunshot.
Caleb filled the doorway, his Brioni shirt sleeves rolled to reveal forearms mapped with scars she'd never asked about. The overhead light caught the silver threading through his tousled hair, making him look like some fallen angel who'd taken up stock trading.
"Grass," he said, the word a graveled accusation.
Luna didn't turn from the mirror. "You're cultivating a new hobby?"
"Green." His knuckle whitened against the doorframe. "As in hats."
Ah. The jealous husband routine. How pedestrian.
She blotted her lips, watching his reflection through the veil's gauze. "Mr. Wang prefers blondes."
The porcelain sink cracked as Caleb's palm met its edge. "You let that rancid walrus paw at you for funding?"
"Let?" The veil fluttered with her exhale. "I orchestrated. You of all people should appreciate the theater."
He crossed the distance in two strides, pinning her hips against the sink's chipped edge. Up close, he smelled of Islay whisky and something darker—burnt almonds, maybe, or cyanide. Luna catalogued the tells: dilated pupils, carotid pulse visible above his open collar, the way his cologne deepened when his body temperature rose.
"Was the pole part of the script?" His thumb found the qipao's slit, brushing the dagger strapped to her thigh. "Or just your nostalgia for mother's cabaret days?"
The reference stung. She drove her elbow into his solar plexus.
He caught the blow against his ribs, laughter vibrating through her bones. "There she is. The girl who headbutted a loan shark at fourteen."
Outside, Wang's slurred voice oozed through the door. "Lulu? You drownin' in there?"
Caleb's smile turned feral. "Shall we give him a show?"
His mouth crashed against hers—no tentative exploration, but the clash of opposing armies. Luna tasted blood before realizing it was his. The coppery tang mingled with the sharpness of his aftershave, an intoxicating compound that fired her synapses like tracer rounds.
When his teeth grazed her jugular, she bit his lip hard enough to draw ichor.
"Xiao gou," he murmured into the hollow of her throat. Little dog. The endearment her mother used before the pills stole her Mandarin along with her will to live.
"Bastard." Her knee connected with his thigh. "We had a deal."
"Deals..." His tongue traced the shell of her ear, "…are for shareholders. This is alchemy."
The door rattled on its hinges. Margaret's shrill falsetto pierced through. "Luna Carter, you open this—"
Caleb spun them, using his body as a shield as the door burst inward. Wang's porcine face contorted when Luna stepped aside, revealing Margaret sprawled across the urine-slick floor.
"Darling!" Luna chirped, adjusting her veil. "Mr. Wang was just admiring your... vintage appeal."
The ensuing chaos unfolded with operatic splendor. Margaret's scream as Wang mistook her wrinkle-smooth forehead for Luna's. The security footage (conveniently uploaded to Douyin by Jaden's hacker protege) of the financier fleeing with his Armani slacks around his ankles. Xander's subsequent bidding war for Luna's hairpin camera.
In the Bentley's soundproofed rear, Caleb pressed an iced towel to his split lip. "You fight dirty."
Luna reapplied her lipstick using his driver's rearview. "You started it."
His laughter warmed the space between them more than the cognac. When his pinky brushed hers on the leather seat, she didn't pull away.
The clinic's new wing opened the following week, its brass plaque gleaming: Dr. Li Yaling Memorial Center. Reporters asked about the anonymous donation covering three years' operating costs. Luna smiled behind her veil, savoring the way Caleb's thumb circled her wrist as Wang's bankruptcy headlines scrolled across every screen in the lobby.
That night, she left a suture kit on his pillow—an inside joke wrapped in a threat. He retaliated by replacing her jasmine tea with pu'erh aged in his private vault.
Thus began their détente—written not in contracts, but in scars and stolen breaths.