Page 13 of The Last Dance

Chapter Four

~ Vadim ~

I sat in my booth, right hand flat on the burgundy leather, left on the glass. The suit was new; the shoulder holster was not, and the weight of it against my ribs was more familiar than my own voice.

I liked to be visible about the things that mattered. The bouncers appreciated it, and the staff got a reminder about which side of the food chain they worked on.

Anyone who minded wasn’t worth my attention.

The vodka in front of me wasn’t water, but I handled it the same way. One sip at the start of the night—acidity, a bite of cold to cut through the haze—and then nothing. I never let myself slip.

I didn’t usually drink at the clubs. Liquor was just another tool for leverage, to watch other men drown themselves while I kept my head above the line. But tonight was a special case.

On stage, Iren worked the pole with a kind of lazy athleticism that was more honest than the choreographed grind of the others. He hit the center under the amber lights, arms over his head, wrists together, body stretched so thin you could have threaded it through a wedding band.

He didn’t flirt with the crowd. He didn’t have to. Every eye on the floor followed his rotation, and the ones who looked away did it because they were afraid of what it meant to be seen watching him.

He never looked at me. Not once. I watched for it.

Instead, he caught the light in quick slices, muscle under skin, motion so well-controlled you could have measured it in increments. The song was a forgettable club remix, but Iren used the failures of the beat to his advantage. He’d freeze just before the drop, arch, then cut the pose on the off-beat so the crowd felt the letdown as a personal loss.

The effect was surgical. The tips hit the stage in twos and fives, some folded, some balled tight by men who needed a secret. I saw it all from above, the way a wolf sees the herd. My advantage was elevation, and also that nobody else in this room was willing to claim him.

My pulse stayed even, but I was already planning the next hour: the drive, the room, the chair, the first second he realized it was a private show. Not for money, not for tips. For me.

Yuri materialized behind me with the silence of a man who grew up in places where sound was dangerous. He didn’t sit. He waited, hands folded in front of him, watching the crowd for any disturbance. There would be none tonight. Not unless I wanted it.

The set ended on a half-beat. Iren slid to the floor, knees wide, ass to his heels, hair stuck damp to the back of his neck. He let the pose hang. Only then did he look up—stage scan, eyes straight ahead, then down and away before the hunger in the room could settle into something uglier. He gathered his tips, peeled himself up, and took the side steps offstage like he was walking on water.

I waited.

I didn’t need to give the order aloud. Yuri read the tilt of my glass, the way I lined up the bottom edge to the nearest crease in the table. He nodded once and vanished into the crowd, ghosting the edge of the pit to avoid being noticed by the talent. No one saw him move except me, and the bartender who kept his gaze glued to the sink.

I refilled my glass a finger’s worth. The noise in the club dropped three decibels when I did. It was a trick of the mind, not the acoustics. Even the DJ changed the playlist to something lower, denser, more compatible with the tension in the room. I liked the effect I had on the club, even when I wasn’t in a mood to enjoy it.

Staff orbited my booth, never approaching unless called. The manager made a show of checking the receipts at the end of the bar, then disappeared through the door to the back office. The busboy cleaned the same three tables in sequence, never venturing closer than two arms’ length from my rope. I watched them all, the small rotations of a world that didn’t know how close it was to being remade.

Ten minutes, and Yuri returned with the boy in tow.

Iren still wore his costume—mesh shorts, barely legal, tank top with three deliberate rips and a sheen of sweat that was half the reason he got booked on weeknights.

He carried a duffel bag over his shoulder, knuckles white on the strap, but his walk was loose and easy. The only tell was the microsecond he paused at the velvet rope, and the way his eyes flicked up to mine, then away.

I stood. I didn’t do that often, not for anyone, but I liked the effect it had. The boy stopped as if he’d hit a tripwire. “Get your bag,” I said.

He already had it, but he adjusted the strap, a nervous gesture. “We're not doing this here?” he asked, gaze slanted, not quite meeting mine.

“No,” I said.

He opened his mouth, thought better of it, and followed as I reached for my jacket off the back of the booth seat. Yuri kept pace a half-step behind, already scanning for the fastest path to the exit.

Iren watched us, expression sliding between wariness and a kind of hungry curiosity that he hadn’t named yet. I could see him taking inventory of every detail: my suit, the movement of my hands, the flash of steel at my hip, the exact color of my shirt. He was cataloguing, not for defense, but for future use.

Smart.

I liked that.

We moved as a unit, past the bar, down the short ramp to the private entrance. The air in the hall was cold compared to the main room, enough to pull goosebumps up on Iren’s arms. I watched the effect, not hiding it.