I pulled up to the locationâupscale restaurant, valet parking, outdoor seating with heat lamps and privacy screens. Classy. Expensive. The kind of place where you could have a screaming fight and the staff would just bring more wine.
Valet practically ran over when he saw the Chiron. Kid was maybe nineteen. Eyes like dinner plates.
"Take care of her," I said, handing him the keys.
"Yes sir! Absolutely sir!"
I walked toward the restaurant. Could see them through the glass. Sitting at a table. Far apart. Body language screaming hostility.
Yeah.
This was gonna be fun.
I pushed open the door.
LumiĂšre was a cage of hushed money and gilded silence. From my velvet-lined alcove, I watched the air shimmer with truffle falseness and the lies whispered by crystal. I nursed a glass of Burgundy that tasted like blood and velvet, the thick menu propped up like a shield, making me invisible.
Across a table the size of a small country, Lea and Kayla sat like two opposing ideologies about to go to war.
Lea leaned forward, a deliberate counterpoint to the dark-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. The black halter top she wore was a quiet announcement, clinging to a body of restrained curves she hid from a world that couldnât handle the math behind her beauty.
Behind those lenses, her eyes werenât just cool; they were scalpels, dissecting every micro-expression on Kaylaâs face.
A single, escaped strand of dark hair curled against her cheekânot an accident, I was sure, but a thread sheâd purposefully left dangling to see who would dare to pull it. She was the scholar, the quiet storm, and she blushed when you complimented her mind, but her eyes held the promise of a wildfire.
Then there was Kayla. She didnât sit in chairs; she conquered them. She was draped over hers like it was her personal throne, a white scrap of a crop top revealing a waist so defined it looked airbrushed, and rust-red shorts that were a flag of conquest over hips that didnât need to announce themselves.
Her dark hair was twisted into a complicated knot that looked careless but was probably a fortress of pins and product costing more than my monthly rent.
She smiled with the lazy certainty of a Roman empress, her gaze sliding over Lea like a flicker of polished contempt, as if she were a fascinating but ultimately irrelevant bug.
The silence between them wasnât empty; it was a loaded gun with the safety off.
Leaâs fingers brushed the stem of her water glass, a slow, deliberate movement, calibrating. In response, Kaylaâs knee nudged forward under the table, a casual invasion of airspace, a claim on the neutral ground.
A live wire of pure animus snapped between them.
Leaâs eyebrow lifted a fractionâthe only crack in her armor, a quiet dare. Kayla answered by touching her tongue to her lip, a slow, deliberate, wet fuck you.
A maĂźtre dâ in a suit started toward them, took one look at the atmospheric pressure at the table, and made a
wise,
strategic retreat.
I stayed motionless, a predator hidden in the tall grass. My pulse wasnât keeping time with the room; it was a low, predatory drumbeat, counting down to the explosion. They still hadnât seen me, lost in their own private cold war.
ARIAâs voice was a cool, clean whisper in my ear, cutting through the restaurantâs hush. "We have a shadow."
"Status?" I didnât move, my eyes still fixed on the two girls.
"The same vehicle. The black, tinted sedan. It has been maintaining a discrete three-block distance since you exited the Meridian Agency. It is currently parked two blocks west of your position."
I had to inwardly applaud the sheer, professional persistence. That car had been a phantom for a week now, and it seemed my fan was getting more ambitious. To understand this particular ghost, you have to go back to the beginning of the week, to a time when the only thing I was worried about was which of my women to fuck first.
The Monday after the Priya, the foursome with Amanda, Vivienne, and Madison, weâd actually gone to school. Tommy showed up in his Lambo, of course, but Iâd stuck to our Range Rover earlier arrangement, pulling up in the matte black Range Rover. It was a good day, normal almost.
Until the moment I left for the estate.
Thatâs when the ghost first appeared. An old, dark sedan, so generic it was almost memorable. Tinted windows so deep ARIAâs standard optical penetrations were useless. It followed, keeping a perfect, infuriating distance.
This wasnât Jack. It wasnât some two-bit PI heâd hire. Jackâs people were loud, clumsy. This someone... this person was good.
They knew where the blind spots were. They moved with an anticipatory grace that suggested they knew ARIA was watching. Theyâd avoid every street camera, every traffic cam, every public lens like they had a copy of my AIâs own surveillance grid. It was impressive.
It was insulting.
It got better.
They found out where I lived. ARIAâs thermal cameras hidden deep in the woods surrounding the Lincoln Heights estate eventually caught a hooded figure near the perimeter fence one night.
Still, no matter what we didâsatellite passes, acoustic triangulation, facial recognition algorithmsâwe threw every tool we had at themâwe got nothing. No identity, no license plate, no heat signature M.O. They were a professional void.
After a week of this, weâd made a command decision. They werenât a threat.
Yet.
They were an observer. So, we waited. Let them get comfortable. Let them make a mistake. Peter Carter had a stalker, and I was always fuckinâ careful to never lead them anywhere that would connect him to Eros.
But now heâtheyâwere here. Waiting outside while I was inside, about to step into a different kind of minefield entirely.
Because as for the two girls sitting across from me, I wasnât just here to mediate a truce or play the charming date.
I was here to conquer. I was here to see which one would break first, which one would beg. The story that led to Lea and Kayla sitting a table away, about to gut each other with dessert forks over the right to be with me, was, I was beginning to realize, even more interesting than my professional-grade phantom.
And I couldnât wait to see how it would play out. Especially with an audience.