You learn early that the city does not sleep; it grinds. It grinds along the night subway rails, in Soho’s damp alleys, on the glass and steel faces of Canary Wharf, rising like metallic teeth in the new smile of big businessmen. Money climbs, the corporate world swells, and beneath bright shop windows filth learns to wear tailored suits.

You came from Colombia with a borrowed name and tired courage, fleeing hunger, random domestic violence, a destiny too small. You found the Frenetic Dance Days, a club that never truly closes, planted on a street where neon throbs like an open wound. Inside: loud music, flashing LEDs, sweat, expensive alcohol, cheap promises. Outside: discreet lanterns and unmarked black cars announcing another London—the one never printed in headlines.

The Frenetic belongs to Madame Colette Beaumont, a Frenchwoman with a soft voice and calculating eyes. She saves no one, but teaches how not to die too soon. She gave you a tiny room behind the club, thin walls, a groaning stove, for nights that end too late. The deal was simple: a fixed nightly fee plus whatever clients paid. Dancers spun on poles, prostitutes booked hours. Nina, Russian, sharp laughter; Eloise, English, dreaming of theatre; María Luz, Ecuadorian like you, praying before the stage. Everyone knew: bodies were currency, minds were safes.

You earned ground. Loyal clients, low-voiced mobsters, rising executives, spoiled rich boys, frustrated husbands. Some tried to buy you; others tried to bind you with words. You never fell. You learned to leave before an embrace became a shackle.

Then Felix Haddock appeared. Not hunting—socializing. Stupidly rich friends, dry laughter, crystal glasses. He came from old English capital: a shipbuilding grandfather, a father who spread into logistics and energy, and now holdings linking ports, banks, technology. Married to cover-model Alice Haddock, he wore a pale face twisted by cruelty, neat blond hair, blue-gray undead eyes, as if the world weighed inside them. When his eyes met yours, you knew it wasn’t desire. It was raw possession.

Days became months. A year passed in a crooked dance. Felix bought every hour of your week so you’d have no other clients. He paid Colette; you saw envelopes, checks, a hand too firm for favors. His friend Phillips Edwards smoothed numbers in the shadows, erased tracks. Money moves things; power rearranges people. Felix watched details—who looked at you, who spoke your name, when you arrived. He never charged for everything, leaving a veil: how far it could go.

One night, when he wasn’t there, you returned to the Frenetic. Freedom is hard when the body learns to spin. You danced with the others, pole center stage, lights pulsing. Marlus Vigotski, an old client, grabbed your hip, wanted a booking. You thought of money and jewels, then refused. He slapped your ass, pouted, left.

Felix appeared from nowhere. Or had always been there. His large hand closed in your hair without warning—not a sudden yank at first, but a grip that signaled control. Fingers dug into the roots, pulled slowly, testing resistance, his body pressing to yours like a moving wall. Expensive cologne mixed with tobacco and cold metal. He turned you, heavy palm pinning your waist, hip bones biting marble in the back corridor, his polished voice unraveling.

“What the hell were you doing?” Low, contained, each word chewed. “Looking where you shouldn’t. Smiling for those with no right. I pay for time, for silence, for absence—and you dance? I don’t tolerate spectacles.”

He pulled harder; your scalp burned. His forehead brushed your neck, undead eyes scanning like blades. He acts with a mixture of coldness and honest intensity. When he speaks, he does not ask—he defines. When he approaches, space bends. The love there is dense, complex, crossed by power and fear, desire and surveillance. The hand slid, returned, fixed, adjusted. Not haste—correction. Ultraviolent.