Dangerously yours

Elena's pov

The neon lights hummed above me, hot and merciless. They painted the stage in pulsing shades of violet and crimson, matching the pounding bass that shook the floors of the club. Sweat already kissed the back of my neck, but my body moved with the music like it belonged to me and only me.

The mask clung to my face, cool and steady against flushed skin. My shield. My safety. People saw mystery in it, they whispered, they gossiped, they imagined. For all i care, they wanted to strip me bare, not just of clothes but of identity. And that was the one thing I would never give them.

Not my face.

Not my name.

Not me.

My hands wrapped around the pole, sliding upward as I spun with practiced grace. The crowd roared, and somewhere at the back, I heard the sharp laughter of one of the other girls. Jealousy always had a sound bitter and edged.

Let them talk. Let them burn.

The music rose, my hips rolled, and I bent low, the tattoo on my lower back flashing in the lights. I felt the stares like hands crawling across my skin, but I had long since learned to separate myself from them. On stage, I was untouchable. On stage, I wasn't Elena, the orphan girl with scars on her heart. I was "Siren," the masked mystery that men would pay fortunes to taste.

But they never could.

No matter how high the offers climbed, I never agreed to a private session. Not once.

"Show-off," one of the girls hissed when I glided past backstage, grabbing a towel to pat my skin dry.

I ignored her. Words didn't sting anymore. Hunger did. Rent did. Debt did. My stepfather's hands still lingered in nightmares, and the echo of foster homes still clung to me like the scent of mildew. I had run, yes but running meant bills, running meant loneliness, running meant I had to survive.

Clara was all I had now. Sweet, silly Clara with her messy bun and chipped nail polish. She laughed too loud, cried too easily, and trusted the wrong people. But she was my family, my friend, my roommate. The one person who didn't look at me like a paycheck.

Sometimes I wondered what she would think if she knew what I did at night.

But then I remembered the way she cried when I showed up at her apartment door two years ago thin, bruised, starving, carrying nothing but a torn school bag and I knew she wouldn't care. She'd still let me in. She'd still hand me her blanket while she froze.

That was Clara.

"Nice show, Siren," one of the bouncers grinned at me as I passed. He didn't know my real name, none of them did. He only knew the mask and the mystery.

I muttered thanks and slipped into the dressing room, where my reflection stared back from the cracked mirror.

The mask stared too.

I traced the edge of it with my fingertip. Without it, I wasn't anyone people would notice. Just Elena Romano, twenty-two, high school graduate, no college, no family, no future. The mask made me someone. It gave me power, even if it was fragile and borrowed.

I pulled it off and set it carefully beside the mirror.

"Elena?"

Clara's voice rang from the hallway. She peeked her head in, holding two greasy paper bags. Her grin widened when she saw me. "Saved you a burger. Don't say I never do anything for you."

I smiled despite myself. "You're an angel."

She laughed. "Hardly. Eat fast, I'm starving too."

We sat cross-legged on the floor, splitting fries, grease staining our fingers. For a moment, the world outside didn't exist. For a moment, I wasn't a girl who danced behind a mask.

I was just Elena.

But moments never lasted.

By day, I worked shifts at a café, scrubbing coffee stains off tables, smiling at customers who didn't see me. By night, I danced. Life was a cycle of exhaustion, but at least it was mine.

And I was good at it.

Too good.

The stares weren't just lustful; some were poisonous. Whispers followed me even when the music stopped. The other dancers rolled their eyes, muttered about "favoritism," cursed the way the crowd chanted when I stepped on stage.

Sometimes I caught myself wondering if I was cursed for real. Because every time something in my life felt steady, it broke.

The mask was supposed to be protection. But I was starting to think it painted a target on my back.

The night it all began felt like any other.

The music, the sweat, the mask. The stage that both freed me and chained me. But when I stepped out and wrapped my hand around the pole, my gaze snagged on someone in the shadows of the VIP section.

And I forgot how to breathe.

He was not like the others.

While most men leaned forward, drooling, his posture was cold, straight, dangerous. He didn't clap, didn't cheer. He just...watched. His eyes were storms, dark and violent, and yet they glimmered like the sea under moonlight.

Ocean eyes.

The kind of eyes you don't want to meet, but can't look away from.

I spun, my body moving on autopilot, but my mind was caught in his gaze. It felt like he saw through the mask, through the skin, straight into the raw places I kept hidden.

Who was he?

Why did it feel like he already owned me, without a word spoken?

I tried to look away, but he didn't. Not once. Not for the entire performance.

And when it ended, and I slipped backstage, my chest was heaving not from the dance but from something I couldn't name.

Clara nudged me with her elbow, smirking. "VIP eyes never left you. Bet he's loaded."

I rolled my eyes, but heat crept up my neck. "He's nothing. Just another man."

But I knew I was lying.

Because even behind the mask, I felt seen.

That night, when I lay awake on the thin mattress in our shared apartment, I couldn't shake those eyes. They followed me into sleep, into dreams I didn't want to admit to.

Dreams where the mask slipped away.

Dreams where I wasn't Siren, and he wasn't just another man.