Evening in Santerra is warm and sticky — like unfamiliar hands grabbing you on the street, promising you that fun is just one wrong step away. The city smells of the ocean, expensive perfume, and the urge to spend money faster than night can fall.
Santerra likes being obeyed.
And I… I still do not know whether I serve her or try to outrun her.
I, André Cortland, fly down the streets in my red convertible — flashy, too loud, a rolling confession that I am once again trying to prove something to myself. I cut lanes, honk, accelerate, as if I can outrun my own thoughts.
Christian Grayson only laughs.
His laugh is low, calm, unshakably confident.
He is like a moving monolith who barely fits inside the passenger seat. Around him, the city behaves better, and people behave carefully.
A week of classes behind us — my brain boiling like an overheated aquarium — and I want only one thing: to shut it all off.
Though who am I kidding?
Even if I turn off my head, my heart keeps sending out dumb SOS signals.
"You're thinking about her again, aren't you?" Christian drawls.
His tone is relaxed.
His eyes — too perceptive.
"What makes you think that?" I mutter, pretending I have any secrets from him.
"You're driving like you're trying to ram through the whole city."
Damn it. He's right.
I am furious.
My parents called Isabella inappropriate.
Said it right in front of her, as if they wanted to see if she would break.
She didn't break.
She just… disappeared.
And for days now she's silent, as if Santerra swallowed her whole along with the noise of its midnight streets.
We pull up to Angel — the best club in the city.
A place where even the walls know the price of people.
And the value of those who enter without waiting in line.
The line stretches down the whole block: legs in stockings, glitter on collarbones, dresses too short to be legally called dresses.
Santerra loves to look like she is ready to lie in your hand — and sink her claws in your shoulder a moment later.
Girls pose, twist their curls, throw their sultry glances at passing cars…
They hope.
But not all of them will get in.
And the one who decides that — of course — is Christian.
Not just head of security.
More like a living beacon of authority.
A giant to whom every door in Santerra opens.
And who opens doors for others — if he feels like it.
He steps out, and the line erupts in squeals.
I watch their eyes sparkle — as if they already see the champagne of the VIP room reflected in their pupils.
"All right, beauties," he says with his signature predator's smile. "Tonight… you three."
Three girls — like three cards pulled from the deck of fate.
Long legs, short skirts, eyes saying take me right now.
And I am certain any one of them would gladly become someone's mistake for Christian.
I look at them and…
nothing.
Empty.
Strange.
Usually something inside me lights up the second I step in here.
But tonight — silence.
A dangerous kind of silence.
We walk inside.
The club greets us with deafening music, pulsing lights, the smell of alcohol, and the thick, lazy luxury of people who believe the night owes them something.
In Santerra, the night is currency.
Those who know how to spend it — rule.
Our table is always free.
Our glasses are always full.
Our world — wide open, lawless, except for one rule: never think about tomorrow.
The girls slide close, laughing, brushing their fingers against me.
Soft.
Insistent.
Studying me like a language they intend to learn.
They lean in so far that jaws drop around the room with audible thuds.
But me…
I do not even ask their names.
Christian throws me a side glance.
In it — a silent question:
"Are you even alive, André?"
I look at my phone.
At the black screen.
At the silence.
Isabella.
Where are you?
Why aren't you answering?
Why do I miss your voice — that soft, slightly husky voice that always sounds like it's hiding a secret?
A waiter sets a bottle of champagne on the table.
The girls reach for their glasses, arching like participants in some ancient ritual of temptation.
And I…
I feel that in one more second — just one — I will crack.
Say something stupid.
Do something even worse.
Step out of the role everyone here expects of me.
And in Santerra, mistakes are expensive.
Sometimes — too expensive.
And exactly in that moment—
My phone vibrates in my hand.
One message.
Short.
From her.
Isabella.
And everything inside me flips —
as if my convertible just hit a concrete wall at one-forty.
**
I show Christian Isabella's message.
At first he just snorts… and then he laughs — bright, lazy, careless — and a cold ripple of irritation runs down my spine.
Of course. Isabella pours her heart out to me, and Christian treats it like entertainment.
He glances over the girls practically sitting on our laps already — young, glossy, deliberately undone, each one looking like she hopes to be someone's mistake for one night.
"Girls," he says in a tone that tightens my stomach. "Go dance. I need a moment with my friend."
His voice is velvet laid over steel; refusal simply does not exist in his universe.
They spring up as if someone wound them from inside, then smile, blow us kisses, sway their hips with theatrical precision, and melt into the crowd under the music that slices the night into shards of light and bass. The DJ seems to be butchering darkness into rhythm.
I stay across from Christian.
And across from my own heartbeat that's trying to escape my chest.
"André," he says, looking at me with that half-reproachful, half-weary expression — the one he uses when I fail his invisible expectations. "What now? A case of lovesick fever? Forget Isabella. Beauty is everywhere."
He nods toward a girl on the dance floor. Her body bends to the beat as if her joints are made of mercury. She catches my gaze and slowly runs her hand up her thigh — higher than polite — and smiles.
Inviting me.
Daring me.
And yes, I see her. And yes, she could distract me.
But all that comes out of me is a sharp exhale.
"Sophia Blackmore," I say, as if the name itself is a diagnosis. "My 'future wife,' according to my father. She'll destroy me, Chris."
Christian laughs so loudly half the club turns to look.
As if I told him a joke instead of confessing a fear.
"André, take that nonsense somewhere else." He leans back. "No woman can hurt a man unless he hands her the knife."
Does he actually believe that? Or does he just want me to?
"Easy for you to say," I mutter. "You… you don't even seem capable of loving anyone. Relationships for you are like a new phone — use it, enjoy it, toss it when it gets boring."
He shrugs as if I commented on the weather.
Of course.
Christian doesn't replace phones.
He replaces lives.
I swallow.
"And I…" My voice drops. "I get attached. I feel this… pull. And when it breaks, it hurts. Badly. Too badly. And this Sophia…"
For a second the club dims around me. As if someone's shadow falls directly across my chest.
Inside — disgust. Irritation. Fear.
"I'll marry Isabella," I whisper, mostly to myself. "Behind my father's back. And I'll run away with her. Anywhere."
Christian stops smiling.
His eyes deepen. Something darker swims there.
He leans in, close enough that I smell his cologne — cold, expensive, predatory.
"Calm down," he says. "That's foolish. Your father will strip you of everything. Money, cars, accounts, status. You'll be nothing."
I stay silent, but something tightens inside me, winding into a knot.
"And you know what happens then?" he continues, slowly, almost tenderly. "You'll watch your sweet Isabella turn into a little devil the moment she realizes you're not Daddy's golden boy anymore."
A pause.
A soft, poisonous beat.
"And yes. You'll regret not marrying Sophia Blackmore."
A chill rolls through me.
"What do I do?" I ask, barely audible under the thunder of the music. "Chris… I'm lost."
He places his hand on my shoulder.
Strong fingers. Steady. Possessive.
Comforting… and unsettling at the same time.
"Friend," he says. "I'll handle it. Just trust me. I'll make sure she stops bothering you."
His voice is gentle.
Too gentle.
He smiles — lazy, confident, predatory at the edges.
"You… you won't hurt her, will you?" I ask sharply. My heart drops like a stone.
Christian raises his brows — theatrically, almost righteously offended.
"God forbid, André. How could you think that?"
But in his voice…
there's something.
Something slick.
Something that makes me go still.
He isn't planning to hurt her.
Of course not.
He's planning something else.
Something I can't yet see.