Page 81 of Dominion’s Collar

Four words, and the booth shrinks to the size of a coffin. 'Tell me about Elysium.' She doesn't ask. She tells me to tell her, and neither of us misses who just gave the order.

The scotch sits between us. The usual weekday crowd fills the lounge: Renata behind the bar, Andy beside her, Margot's gaze periodic from the mezzanine.

Cole gave me an update before I came back to the booth. What Luc has pulled from Elysium's old records confirms that the club's booking system was visible to anyone holding a committee or mediation role. The access wasn't restricted. It didn't need to be. Nobody anticipated that a trusted volunteer would use scheduling information to track where a submissive would be on a given night.

I haven't told Natalie any of this. I haven't told her what I told Luc in my study. What I pieced together from the pattern of her questions.

What Claire Bergeron's face looks like when it's wearing her sister's eyes.

"Not here," I say.

She holds my gaze. The defiance in it is controlled, calibrated. Underneath it I can see the cost of carrying whatever she found today. She walked into this booth prepared to fight me for information.

She doesn't have to fight. That's what she hasn't figured out yet.

"Where?" she says.

"Upstairs."

The private rooms are where the dynamic lives. And the only space in this building where the conversation she's demanding can happen without an audience.

She slides out of the booth. I follow.

The room is set for a session. Padded table. Restraints coiled on the side shelf. Ambient light low.

I hadn't planned on using it tonight. The plan was the townhouse, equal footing, her fully dressed. Cole's interruption and Natalie's refusal to wait have rearranged the sequence.

I close the door. She stands near the table, arms crossed, the collar dark against her throat.

"I was at Elysium," I say. "For years."

"I know." Her chin lifts. "Your turn to tell me something I don't."

"You've been investigating it since before you walked through Dominion's door."

Her arms don't uncross. "Keep going."

"And I've been carrying fragments from that place for longer than you've been looking."

"Fragments of what?"

I lean against the wall. The words don't come easily. They never do when they matter, and I've been carrying these for years. "Incidents. Things that didn't add up."

"Be specific."

"A submissive who left after a demonstration scene and never came back. A complaint about a boundary violation mediated by the same man repeatedly in the same year. Women who arrived confident and left skittish."

"And nobody connected them."

"Each one had a plausible explanation. A bad scene. A miscommunication."

"But you noticed."

"I noticed the resolution came faster than the problem warranted. When I started looking, I discovered one person kept volunteering to mediate. His warmth made everyone feel handled, and handled felt like helped."

"That's not the same as helped."

"No. It isn't."