Chapter 10

The heavy bass from the underground SOHO club vibrated through the soles of Isla's stilettos.

She wore a sharp, blood-red velvet suit. Her lips were painted a matching crimson. She walked past the bouncers, flashing a black metal card. They bowed instantly, leading her away from the chaotic dance floor and down a dark hallway toward the soundproof VIP rooms.

Kristy and three arrogant Parisian fashion buyers were already sitting inside the room.

Isla walked in. She didn't greet them. She walked straight to the head of the table, sat down, and crossed her legs. She radiated absolute, terrifying authority.

She picked up a martini glass, taking a slow sip.

The lead Parisian buyer leaned forward. "We want a thirty percent cut of the European distribution, Freya. Or we block your entry."

Isla let out a cold, mocking laugh. She slammed a thick dossier onto the glass table.

"Your supply chain in Milan is bankrupt," Isla said in flawless, razor-sharp French. "You need my brand to survive the quarter. You get ten percent, or I crush your company by Friday."

The Parisian buyers went pale. The air in the room grew suffocating under her dominance.

Directly above them, on the second floor of the club, Curtiss walked out of a private lounge. He had just finished a brutal negotiation with Wall Street bankers.

He felt a massive headache coming on. His mind kept flashing back to Isla's pale, terrified face in the bathroom last night. He just wanted to go home and check on her.

"Bring the car around," Curtiss told K. Jennings as they walked down the private VIP stairs to the first floor.

As they walked down the dark hallway, a drunk patron stumbled out of a side door, violently crashing into the door of Isla's VIP room.

The heavy door cracked open just a few inches. The blinding light from inside spilled out into the dark hallway.

Curtiss stopped walking. He frowned at the noise and casually glanced through the crack in the door.

His expensive leather shoes rooted to the floor. His lungs stopped working.

Through the narrow gap, he saw her.

Sitting at the head of the table, wearing a blood-red suit, holding a martini glass, was his pathetic, stuttering, terrified wife.

But she wasn't stuttering. Isla's chin was tilted up. Her eyes were lethal. She was looking at the men across the table with the exact same ruthless arrogance Curtiss used to destroy his enemies.

He watched her lips move, delivering a command that made the grown men across from her sweat.

Curtiss's brain flatlined for one agonizing second. Then, the truth hit him like a freight train.

The perfectly tailored dress. The lack of fear in her eyes when she thought no one was looking. The scrubbed files.

A violent wave of fury crashed into him, instantly followed by a twisted, burning surge of adrenaline. He had been played.

The bouncers grabbed the drunk man and pulled him away. The heavy door began to swing shut.

Just before the door clicked closed, Isla's survival instinct flared. She felt a presence. She snapped her head toward the door.

Through the two-inch gap, her eyes slammed directly into Curtiss's pitch-black stare.

Isla's blood turned to liquid nitrogen. The martini glass in her hand shook violently, spilling red liquor over her fingers.

Bang. The door shut completely.

Inside the room, Isla shot up from her chair. She couldn't breathe. Her chest heaved as pure panic ripped through her body. She was caught.

Out in the hallway, K. Jennings looked confused. "Sir? Should I handle that?"

Curtiss stared at the closed door. His face went completely expressionless, a mask of pure, impenetrable ice, but his eyes darkened into a bottomless, dangerous abyss. The air around him dropped to freezing, heavy with a terrifying, calculated stillness.

"Lock down every exit in this club," Curtiss ordered, his voice perfectly calm, yet every single word was coated in frost. "I want to know exactly who she is. No one leaves."