Chapter 2 The Play

• The club is the kind of place that sells illusions for a hundred bucks a glass.
• Polished floors, champagne waterfalls, velvet booths hidden behind curtains thick enough to drown a confession. It’s half stockbrokers, half criminals — all of them desperate for the same thing: to feel untouchable for one more night.
• Perfect hunting ground.
• Ellerei Vale stands near the marble bar, a vision spun out of silk and bright lies. Her hair is pinned up except for that single streak of white that spills like a ribbon through dark waves. On anyone else it might look juvenile — on her, it’s a threat and a promise. A mark no disguise can hide.
• The dress is tight. Red. Cut to slice the breath out of anyone who glances twice. The neckline is strategic. The slits even more so. The diamond choker is fake but no one here would dare ask.
• Beside her, Knox Maddox plays the part of her muscle — tailored suit barely containing broad shoulders, knuckles still bruised from the warm-up act last night. He scans the floor with dark green eyes that look bored enough to kill.
• They’re supposed to look bored.
• Behind the scenes, Bishop’s voice crackles soft in her ear — the mic is hidden in the hollow of her collarbone, where Knox’s thumb brushed earlier when he straightened it without thinking.
• “Main floor’s crawling with cameras. Nothing I can’t handle. You’ve got seven minutes to work your mark before security does their round.”
• “Copy,” Ellerei murmurs. Her lips barely move. Her eyes flick past the bar’s gold leaf edge to the mark — a hedge fund vampire with enough dirty money to make tonight worth it. He’s older, shiny watch, bad tie. He hasn’t noticed her yet. He will.
• Knox leans in close enough that his breath skims the shell of her ear. To anyone watching, it’s intimate. For the mark’s benefit. For the con. For the con.
• “You good?” Knox rumbles.
• It’s the same question he asks when she’s patching his split brow on a safehouse couch at three in the morning. The same question that means nothing and everything.
• “I’m good,” she says, sweet enough to melt steel. She flicks her eyes to him. He’s so close she can smell the cinnamon from his coffee. Close enough that if she tilted forward half an inch her lips would brush his jaw.
• But she doesn’t. She never does.
• He lingers — one palm flat at the small of her back, possessive, protective. His fingers flex. The contact sizzles up her spine, right into the base of her skull. He doesn’t even feel it. For Knox, it’s choreography. For her, it’s every secret she’ll never say out loud.
• “Give me five,” she murmurs. “Six if you love me.”
• Knox huffs a laugh. It breaks across her cheek like warm static. “I’ll give you ten.”
• He moves to the side, a shadow with teeth. His eyes follow the mark while his body drifts just enough to give her room to work. His hand slides from her back — a drag of heat that leaves her skin humming.
• Ellerei steps into her mark’s orbit like she was born for it — because she was.
• Decker’s voice slides into her ear, low and calm from the alley where he waits in the driver’s seat of a stolen luxury sedan that’ll disappear the second they don’t need it.
• “Two suits at the back door. Heavy. They’re bored. Keep it that way.”
• “Noted,” Ellerei purrs.
• She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t need to.
• She slides into the mark’s line of sight just as he turns to signal the bartender. Their eyes meet. He’s already hooked — she can see it in the stutter of his gaze from her lips to the streak of white in her hair and back again.
• “Excuse me,” she says, tilting her head, voice dipped in false embarrassment. “Do you know if they serve L’Obélisque here? I’ve been looking everywhere—”
• He’s already nodding, talking over himself to impress her. She lets him. She touches his wrist when he gestures, leans in too close when he jokes about his company card. He thinks he’s hunting her. It’s adorable.
• Knox watches from a few feet away. He doesn’t look at her directly, but she feels him. She always does. His eyes burn holes through every man who thinks they can buy her time.
• The mark orders them champagne she won’t drink. His hand skims her hip — her skin crawls but she keeps the smile pinned perfect. She giggles when she has to. She asks about his watch, his divorce, his club membership. He tells her everything, all while her fingers dip into his coat pocket like a whispered secret.
• A flash drive. Slipped from the inner lining where he thinks it’s safe. Her palm closes around it without a single flicker of guilt.
• Bishop hums in her ear. “Got eyes on you, queen. Cameras loop in three, two—”
• Ellerei’s grin widens. She sets her half-empty glass on the bar, leans in to brush a kiss against the mark’s jaw. He flushes — old money always does when they’re reminded they can’t buy youth that looks like her.
• “I’ll be right back,” she whispers.
• He tries to follow. She presses two fingers to his chest — a push disguised as a promise. He stays put. They always do.
• She pivots, moving through the crowd like a silk blade, and Knox is there. His hand finds her lower back again. She doesn’t flinch this time — she melts. Just enough to sell it.
• He dips his head, mouth brushing the shell of her ear. For the mark, if he’s watching. For the cameras, if they glitch back to life too soon.
• “Got it?” he murmurs.
• “Got it.”
• His fingers press firmer against her spine. He doesn’t know what it does to her. He never will. His touch brands her — not enough to keep her, too much to let her forget.
• “Atta girl,” he says, the words hot enough to undo her if she let them. But she doesn’t.
• He peels off, shouldering past the drunk suits at the bar, clearing her path like a wrecking ball in an expensive suit.
• Bishop’s voice pings again. “Security’s about to do their dance. Two minutes to get your ass to the west door.”
• “Copy,” Ellerei says, soft.
• She slips back to the mark — one last check. He’s drunk, distracted, phone out, thumb scrolling. He’ll wake up tomorrow without his little flash drive and not remember when he lost it. He’ll blame the booze, or the girl with the white streak who called him darling while slipping the knife in.
• By then, the data will be gone, the account bled dry, and the crew halfway to a new name in a new city.
• Outside, Decker waits behind the wheel, engine humming low. He flicks a glance at the rearview when he sees her silhouette appear in the alley’s mouth — a red slash of dress, a ghost with a diamond grin.
• Knox falls in behind her, watchful, a wall of heat at her back. He’d take a bullet for her without knowing what she’s worth.
• “Smooth as glass?” Decker calls as they pile in.
• “Like butter,” Ellerei says, slipping into the passenger seat. She palms the flash drive to Bishop, who’s already cracking the encryption on his tablet, glasses slipping down his nose.
• “Five minutes to untraceable,” Bishop murmurs, eyes flicking up to hers. He catches something she doesn’t say, but he doesn’t push it. He never does. He just nudges her knee with his own, conspirator to conspirator.
• Knox climbs in last, door slamming shut. He drags a palm over his jaw, winces when it grazes the cut on his lip.
• “You good?” Ellerei asks him, soft enough that Decker and Bishop pretend they don’t hear.
• Knox looks at her — really looks — like he’s searching for an answer he’s too blind to find. Then he smiles, tired and warm. “I’m good,” he says.
• She believes him. She always does.
• Because tonight, she’s whoever she needs to be.