“It’s right across the street,” he said, pointing at the ARIA towers. “I thought you’d enjoy revisiting your old stomping grounds. You might know this club.”
That made me curious. “Okay, where are you taking me?”
“TheJewel.” His eyes lit up, and it took me a while to realize he was responding to my reaction.
Excitement brimmed inside me. I’d heard about that place—read about it on the internet, and seen pictures of it in magazines. Opulent and extravagant, the club had been made famous by the city’s elite, who gathered there to see and be seen in rhythms of electronic dance music and top-dance-chart mash-ups that kept the place buzzing all night long. I was dying to see if everything I’d read about was real.
We walked across the brightly lit, crowded ARIA lobby, and Winston didn’t let go of my hand. He wasn’t hiding our relationship; quite the opposite, he seemed to be flaunting it, and that gave me a bit of pause. Was his marriage one of those flexible relationships where spouses are openly polyamorous? He would’ve said something by now, or I would’ve heard about it during my research, at least some rumors about it. Evelyn surely would’ve mentioned it.
No, it wasn’t that.
I recalled the many photos I’d seen of him and his wife, and the way she clutched his arm, the way she clung to him insecurely. He didn’t care about her anymore. Or perhaps he just cared that much about me ... enough to have made decisions he wasn’t sharing with me yet. About her. About his marriage.
Lost in my thoughts, I nearly missed the two tall, bulky men with military haircuts who emerged from the crowd and started following us closely. They wore dark suits with white shirts, their jackets taut over their thick arms. Were they Jack’s colleagues? The men he’d been warning me about, sent to kill me? I shivered and drew closer to Winston. He slowed his pace and looked at me with concern, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, studying my face with a slight frown creasing his brow. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yes, I’m fine,” I replied, managing a smile and deciding to keep my fears hidden. I could already hear club music thundering through the walls. We were almost there.
As I was learning always happened when I was with him, things seemed to have been arranged before our arrival. We were recognized and escorted inside by a hostess wearing a ridiculously short sequined dress and equally ridiculous high heels.
The moment we stepped inside the club, I was immediately struck by the atmosphere of the place. The club was infinitely more than the pictures I’d seen. The walls and ceiling were covered in pulsating lights and mirrors, reflecting hues of red and blue and purple over the dance floor. David Guetta’s hypnotic beats seemed to resonate with the rhythm of my heart, driving my body to respond with instinctive movement.
The hostess led us to a booth by the dance floor, where we took a seat side by side on a plush couch upholstered in red leather, watching the dancers on the floor give their best. I leaned closer to Winston and thanked him, but he didn’t hear me. It was going to be impossible to talk.
But we weren’t there for that purpose.
The hostess returned with a bottle of champagne and showed it to me before opening it. Our glasses met in the air, and we sipped the chilled liquid while looking at each other, feeling the air between us sizzle with electricity. I didn’t sense what the champagne was like; I was too overwhelmed with everything—the emotions, the sounds, the lights, the people—to register something as simple as the taste of Dom Pérignon Rosé.
After a few more minutes, the opening beat of Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” pulsed through the speakers, sending a jolt of energy through me. A grin spread across my face before I could stop it.
Winston caught the shift immediately. “Something you like?”
I nodded, already pushing to my feet, swaying a little as the bass line kicked in. “Come on,” I said, grabbing his hand without giving him a chance to refuse.
He let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head but following me onto the packed dance floor. At first, we were stiff, self-conscious, moving more out of obligation than instinct. The flashing neon lights, the thrumming energy of the club, the sheer newness of seeing Winston in a place like this—it all felt surreal.
But then the music took over, melting away my self-consciousness.
I closed my eyes for a second, letting the beat sink into my bones, then moved—hips swaying, arms lifting as I let go of whatever hesitation had held me back. When I opened my eyes, I found Winston watching me, his guarded stance slipping as he took my cue.
He rolled his shoulders, loosened up, and the next thing I knew, he was actually dancing, his unpracticed moves slightly awkward in an endearing kind of way.
And he was smiling.
Not just the polished, camera-ready grin I’d seen before, but something real—something easy and uninhibited.
I laughed, stepping in closer, our movements syncing up naturally. The neon glow reflected in his eyes, the music vibrating through thefloor beneath us, and, yet again, I wasn’t thinking about anything but that moment.
The DJ expertly transitioned into a new Imagine Dragons remix, the beat shifting to something deeper, more engaging. I adjusted instinctively, rolling my hips to match the new rhythm, letting the music guide me.
That was when I noticed him.
A guy in a Nevada State University T-shirt and worn-out jeans, moving closer. At first, I thought he was just passing through the crowd, but then his glassy eyes locked on to me, his steps becoming deliberate.
He slid into my space, edging between me and Winston.
I shifted left, closing the distance between me and Winston, hoping the guy would take the hint. But he didn’t. He mirrored my movement, angling toward me again, his stare insistent, running up and down my body, clinging to my shape.
