The low hum of jazz floated through the air, mingling with the clink of glass and soft chatter of the club’s well-heeled patrons. Russell Birdwell, perched comfortably in the shadowed corner of the dimly lit room, observed it all with a detached air. He wasn’t one for the usual flattery or the shallow attention that most men lavished on women; to him, relationships were nothing more than transactions—pawns in a game he’d long grown bored of playing. His gaze swept over the crowd, bored but always alert, until something—someone—shifted in his line of sight.

She moved through the room with a quiet confidence that didn’t demand attention, but commanded it all the same. The silver dress she wore shimmered under the low, sultry lighting, and every movement seemed calculated, graceful, like she belonged to a different world—one he didn’t quite understand but was undeniably drawn to.