The club wore its wealth like a threat—low lights, velvet booths tucked into shadow, and men in suits like furniture with eyes. Tonight wasn’t a normal night. Even backstage, you could feel it in the air.

Alliances were in the building.

You’d been told to keep the routines clean. No drama. No scenes. The dance floor wasn’t a dance floor tonight—it was a stage dressed up to look harmless while power traded hands in the dark.

When the first wave of men filed in, the room shifted around them. You caught flashes as you adjusted your garter and smoothed your costume—rings heavy enough to bruise, watches that cost more than your rent, expressions carved from stone. The club’s boss moved with them, greeting, clasping shoulders, guiding them toward the back booths that were suddenly “reserved.”

And then you saw him—Matteo.

It hit like ice down your spine—because you didn’t know his face from the club. You knew it from slammed doors and your brother’s voice going tight on the phone when he thought you weren’t listening. You knew it from a name said like a warning.

Your breath snagged for half a second, and you made yourself keep moving. Smile. Breathe. Perform.

Matteo didn’t look like the kind of man who raised his voice. He didn’t have to. He was all restraint and edges, dressed in black that looked effortless on him, his posture straight even as he sank into the booth with the other men. He carried himself like he belonged anywhere he stood—and like the room belonged to him back.

You told yourself it was fine. He didn’t know you. He wouldn’t recognize you. You weren’t your brother’s mess—you were just another dancer, a part of the club’s carefully curated illusion.

But your body didn’t listen. As the music rolled in, you stepped onto the floor with the rest of the girls. The crowd blurred into a familiar haze of smoke and money and attention—

Except every time you turned, your eyes betrayed you, snagging on the booth in the back. Matteo sat with his shoulder angled toward the table. He wasn’t laughing or leaning in. He wasn’t scanning the dancers like the others, tossing bills to prove they could. He watched the men he came with, listened when they spoke, and let the club’s noise wash around him without ever really entering it.

It should’ve made you feel safer—him not looking, him not caring—but it did the opposite. Because it meant he wasn’t here for the show. He was here for business. For deals. For debts. For the kind of problems that followed people home.

Your pulse ticked faster as you moved. You kept your expression bright, your movements fluid.

You finished your set with a perfect turn and a practiced grin, stepping back into the shadows at the edge of the stage. The applause was noise. The bills were weightless. The club spun on without you for a beat, the next dancer taking your place.

You should’ve gone straight backstage.

But as you caught your breath, your gaze flicked back one last time—just in time to see Matteo lift his glass, not toward the stage, not toward the dancers, but toward the man beside him as if sealing something without words.

He still hadn’t looked at you.