Chapter 1

Catherine pushed open the heavy mahogany double doors.

She stepped into the dimly lit VIP corridor on the fourth floor of The Elysium Club. The bass from the electronic dance music on the main floor vibrated through the soles of her cheap sneakers. The heavy thumping masked the sound of her footsteps against the thick carpet.

Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. At the far end of the hall, outside Suite 404, two massive bodyguards lay unmoving on the floor.

Catherine stopped. Her nostrils flared.

A faint, sharp scent hung in the stagnant air-chemical and sweet, like rotting orchids. The smell hit the back of her throat. Her hidden neurosurgeon instincts flared to life. A potent, weaponized aphrodisiac. It induced paralysis, temporary blindness, and an overwhelming, aggressive sexual drive.

She reached into her frayed faux-leather clutch. Her fingers wrapped around the cold, grooved metal of a tactical defense pen. She kept her grip tight, stepping over the unconscious bodies.

She pushed the ajar door of the suite.

The dim light from a wall sconce illuminated a floor covered in shattered glass. A tall man in a bespoke suit leaned heavily against the edge of a marble wet bar. His chest heaved with violent, ragged gasps.

A man in a black ski mask lunged toward him, raising a syringe filled with glowing blue liquid.

Catherine did not hesitate. She hurled her clutch like a stone. The heavy brass clasp slammed directly into the side of the attacker's face.

The man grunted. The syringe slipped from his gloved fingers and rolled away across the expensive Persian rug.

Catherine closed the distance in two strides. She pivoted, driving her heel directly into the side of the attacker's knee with the precision of a trained operative. Bone crunched.

The attacker cursed in harsh Russian. He stumbled, realized he had lost the advantage, and scrambled over the balcony railing, disappearing into the Manhattan night.

Catherine turned around. The moonlight spilled through the open balcony doors, illuminating the man by the bar.

He had a face carved from granite, but his gray-blue eyes were completely unfocused. They stared blankly ahead.

He was blind. And the sweat dripping from his jaw told her the drug was already binding to his receptors.

Suddenly, the man lunged forward. His large hand clamped around her wrist like a steel vice. The force of his grip ground her bones together.

"Who are you?" his voice scraped out, raw and guttural.

His palm was burning. The unnatural heat radiating from his skin confirmed the worst. The aphrodisiac was aggressive, and its side effects included severe muscle weakness and temporary blindness. But the heat in his blood was purely chemical-it was boiling him alive from the inside.

Heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor outside. More men were coming.

She shoved her shoulder under his armpit. He fought her. He shoved her chest, blindly rejecting the touch of a stranger, but his legs buckled as the drug short-circuited his nervous system.

She snatched a universal keycard and a small laminated emergency protocol card clipped to the belt of the unconscious bodyguard by the door. She dragged the massive man backward, hauling him into the private elevator hidden inside the suite.

She swiped the card. The doors slid shut a fraction of a second before three armed men burst into the room.

The elevator car plunged into dead silence.

In the confined space, the man lost his battle with the drug. His massive frame pinned her against the mirrored wall. His breath, hot and frantic, ghosted over the sensitive skin of her neck.

The elevator stopped at a sub-basement level. Catherine glanced at the laminated card, found a line labeled 'SAFE ROOM - SUB-B', punched the corresponding code on the keypad, and kicked open the door to a secure safe room.

She dragged him inside and shoved him onto the center of a massive king-sized bed. She turned her back, scanning the dark room for a medical kit to find a broad-spectrum counteragent.

The mattress springs creaked.

The man tracked the sound of her movement. He reached out into the dark, his hand wrapping around her waist. He yanked her backward with terrifying strength.

Catherine hit the mattress hard. Before she could strike his pressure points, his heavy body covered hers.

The drug had completely stripped away his sanity. Driven by pure, chemical instinct, he found her mouth in the pitch black. He kissed her with bruising, desperate force.

The intense fight had drained the last of Catherine's adrenaline. The heavy darkness and the overwhelming rush of his heat crushed her defenses. She stopped fighting.

They tore at each other in the dark, anonymous safe room.

Hours later, the pale light of dawn sliced through the window blinds. It hit Catherine's exhausted face.

She carefully slid out from under his heavy, sleeping arm. As she pulled away, the chain of her St. Christopher medal caught on a loose thread of the bedsheets. The cheap metal clasp snapped.

She did not notice the missing weight around her neck. She grabbed his disposable burner phone from the nightstand as collateral, slipped into her clothes, and walked out the door.