The backstage area of The Onyx Room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and expensive perfume. Rory stood in the wings, her hands clammy, her heart a nervous drum against her ribs.
The dress they'd given her was black silk, clinging in a way that made her feel exposed and vulnerable. It wasn't her. None of this was her.
Vince, the manager, gave her shoulder a rough but not unkind pat. "Relax, kid. Just go out there and sing. Your voice will do the rest."
She took a deep breath and walked into the dim, blue-hued light of the stage. The club was a murmur of low conversations and the clinking of ice in heavy crystal glasses. The patrons were silhouettes in expensive suits, their faces obscured by shadows. No one paid her any attention. She was just part of the ambiance.
She sat at the grand piano, the polished keys cool beneath her fingertips. She needed to ground herself, to sing something that felt real. She had a dozen safe, generic songs lined up. But as her fingers touched the cool ivory, the weight of the last six years pressed down, and the only melody that felt honest enough to carry it was the one etched into her soul. It wasn't a choice; it was a confession spilling from her fingertips. It was an old folk ballad she and Corbin used to love, a song about loss, about regret, about a love that haunted you like a ghost.
Her fingers moved over the keys, and she began to sing.
The first few notes were fragile, but as the melody took hold, her voice found its strength. She wasn't performing. She was confessing. She poured every ounce of her heartbreak, her guilt, her unending loneliness into the song.
The low murmur of the club began to fade. One by one, conversations stopped. Heads turned toward the stage. She had them. The entire room was captured in the raw, aching beauty of her sorrow.
Upstairs, in a secluded VIP booth overlooking the entire club, Kade Wexler let out a low whistle. "Damn, Corbin. The new girl can sing."
Corbin Vance swirled the amber liquid in his glass, his expression bored. He hadn't even bothered to look at the stage. But then the melody reached him, a familiar, ghostly tune that snagged on a memory he had long tried to bury. His hand froze.
That song. He knew that song.
His head lifted slowly, his gaze sharpening as it cut through the smoky darkness to the stage. He saw a woman at the piano, a slender figure bathed in a single spotlight. He saw the fall of her dark hair, the curve of her neck.
And then she turned her head slightly, and the light caught her face.
It was her.
Six years had passed. She was thinner, with a fragile exhaustion clinging to her, but it was her. The same eyes. The same mouth. And the same goddamn sorrow in her voice that he remembered from that last, terrible day.
Next to him, Julian Roth stiffened, his own recognition dawning. "Corbin," he started, his voice a low warning. "Is that...?"
Corbin didn't answer. A muscle feathered in his jaw. The initial shock was already hardening into something else-a cold, simmering rage. He'd known she was working here. He'd orchestrated it. But seeing her, hearing her sing their song in this place, for the entertainment of other men... it ignited a twisted, possessive fury in him. A feeling of violation that was as unexpected as it was intense.
"Not bad to look at, either," Kade commented, oblivious to the sudden tension. "Looks a little too... pure for a place like this, though."
The last note of the song hung in the air, vibrating with unspoken pain, before fading into silence. For a moment, the club was still. Then, applause broke out, scattered at first, then growing more insistent.
Rory kept her head bowed, her chest heaving. She finally lifted her eyes, her gaze sweeping across the shadowed faces in a polite, detached scan. And then her eyes reached the VIP booth.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Even in the darkness, she knew that silhouette. The broad shoulders, the way he held his head. She would know him in any light, in any lifetime.
Corbin Vance.
Her heart didn't just stop. It seized. The blood in her veins turned to slush. What is he doing here?
As if he could feel her stare, Corbin slowly raised his glass, a mock toast in her direction. A cruel, knowing smile played on his lips. It was the smile of a predator that has just watched its prey walk calmly into a trap.
The air rushed out of her lungs. The applause, the lights, the entire world receded until the only thing that existed was the terrifying intensity of his gaze.
She scrambled off the stage, her composure shattering. She fled to the relative safety of the wings, her body trembling uncontrollably.
It wasn't a coincidence. It was a trap.
A moment later, Vince Kowalski found her, his face a mixture of excitement and unease.
"Rory, you're not going to believe this. Talk about a lucky first night. The gentleman in the upstairs booth, Mr. Vance, has personally requested your presence."
The color drained from Rory's face. "I'm a singer, Vince. That's all. I don't... do that."
Vince's friendly demeanor vanished, replaced by the cold pragmatism of a businessman. "Listen to me, kid. Mr. Vance owns the building this club is in. He owns the bank that holds my mortgage. When Corbin Vance requests your presence, it's not a request. It's a command. Nobody says no to him."
He leaned in, his voice low. "You want to keep this job? You want to pay your bills? You'll go upstairs."
