The elevator opened directly into Victor’s penthouse, a cavern of glass and steel forty-seven floors above the city. Midnight pressed against the windows on three sides, turning the skyline into a glittering bruise of neon and shadow. Elena stepped out first, heels clicking across the poured-concrete floor, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the vastness of the space.
Victor waited in the center of the living room, shirt unbuttoned to the sternum, a heavy crystal tumbler of something dark in one hand. Behind him, the chaise longue (an antique thing upholstered in blood-red velvet) had been dragged beneath a single spotlight. Silk ropes lay coiled on its seat like sleeping snakes.
Liana was already there.
She stood at the window, completely naked, city lights striping her skin in el
