Chapter 33
Chapter 33:
Skye narrowed her eyes. “And I’ll tell the press the Kensingtons are holding me prisoner to stop me from exposing your accounting errors p>
It was a bluff, but a good one.
They stared at each other. Standoff.
“Fine,” Liam growled. “You stay at the apartment. But I’m hiring a nutritionist. And a driver. And you eat dinner with me twice a week p>
“With Seraphina?” Skye asked.
“No,” Liam said softly, looking at her pale hand on the sheet. “Just us p>
Skye paused. She needed him close to monitor his business moves. “Deal p>
Liam nodded, satisfied with his small victory, and left the room to handle the discharge paperwork. Skye watched the door close, her expression hardening.
She wasn’t going to rest. She was going to rearm.
The next two days in the apartment were a blur of recovery and strategy. Skye slept, ate the meals the nutritionist sent, and plotted. She needed an ally. Someone loud. Someone chaotic. Someone who hated the Kensingtons as much as she did, but for different reasons.
Ethan Vance.
He was reckless, yes. But he was also powerful. And he had seen Liam’s true colors in that lecture hall.
On the third night, Skye dressed. She didn’t choose the student look. She chose war paint: a midnight-blue blazer, sharp heels, and lipstick the color of dried blood.
She checked her phone. Ethan’s social media showed him at his usual haunt: The Obsidian Club.
“Time to make a deal with the devil,” she whispered to her reflection.
The bass inside The Obsidian Club was not a sound; it was a physical assault. It vibrated through the soles of Skye’s stiletto heels, sending sharp jolts of warning up her healing calves—a cruel reminder of her collapse just two days prior. The air was thick, a cloying mixture of expensive cologne, stale smoke, and the metallic tang of ambition.
Skye Sterling adjusted the lapel of her midnight-blue blazer. She checked her reflection in the darkened glass at the entrance. Her lipstick was a weaponized shade of crimson, her eyeliner sharp enough to cut. She didn’t look like a woman who had fainted in a lecture hall; she looked like a predator entering a feeding ground. She forced her posture straight, ignoring the lingering weakness in her limbs.
𝘚𝘁𝗼𝗋𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗍𝗵𝘢𝘁 wі𝗅l 𝗁o𝗈𝗸 у𝗼𝘶 оո 𝗯𝗲.𝘤o𝗺
The bouncer, a man whose neck was wider than his head, glanced at her ID. He paused, his eyes flicking from the laminated card to her face.
“Mrs. Kensington?” he grunted, the name tasting foreign in a place like this. “This isn’t really the… tea party crowd p>
Skye didn’t blink. She didn’t smile. She simply reached out and plucked the ID from his thick fingers with a movement too fast to be polite, but too graceful to be rude.
“I’m not here for tea,” she said, her voice dropping beneath the thumping beat of the music. “I’m here to take out the trash p>
She pushed past him before he could process the insult. As she stepped into the foyer, she caught a glimpse of blonde hair near the cloakroom—Tiffany, Seraphina’s most devoted sycophant, holding a phone up as if checking her makeup, the camera lens pointed directly at Skye.