Chapter not yet complete. Please do not read.

Elena's hand stayed on the door frame. The brass was cool under her fingers, grounding her in the low hum of the club beyond—the bass thrumming through the floor, the distant murmur of the auction crowd. Here, in the pocket of quiet Sebastian's office made, all she could hear was her own heartbeat.

Veya didn't move. Her hand stayed on the safe, the small metal pick frozen mid-turn. She looked at Elena the way a cat looks at a dog that's wandered into its alley—sizing up, not scared.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Veya was kneeling in front of the wall safe, one hand holding a narrow pick against the lock while the other steadied herself against the cabinet beneath it. The picture frame that normally concealed the safe hung open beside her. Elena's gaze moved from the tools in Veya's hand to the open frame and then back to her face.

The surprise that crossed Veya's features lasted barely a heartbeat. Her eyes widened, her hand froze, and then the expression disappeared. She lowered the pick slowly, as though any sudden movement might make the situation worse.

"Elena."

Elena took a step backward.

"Wait." She rose carefully to her feet, keeping her hands where Elena could see them. She didn't move toward her or try to block the doorway. Instead, she stayed beside the safe, giving Elena space while maintaining the calm expression that seemed almost impossible considering she'd just been caught breaking into Sebastian's office.

"You weren't supposed to be here," Veya said.

Elena stared at her, then at the tools in her hand. "What the hell are you doing?"

Veya's gaze flicked briefly toward the safe. "Something I can explain."

"You're stealing from him."

"No." Veya's answer came immediately. She lowered the pick and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket. "I promise you, Elena, I'm not stealing anything from Sebastian."

"Then why are you trying to open his safe?"

Veya hesitated.

It was barely a pause, but Elena caught it. Whatever answer Veya had, she wasn't ready to give it.

Elena turned toward the hallway.

"Elena, wait."

She stopped, but didn't turn around. Behind her, Veya took a slow breath. "If you walk out of here, you're going to make a scene before you know what's actually happening."

Elena glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe that's the point."

"It's not."

There was something different in Veya's voice now. Still calm, but more careful. She wasn't threatening Elena or trying to stop her physically. She was simply trying to keep her talking.

"You can call Sebastian," Veya continued. "You can call security. I'm not going to stop you. But before you do, please give me a minute to explain why I'm here."

Elena studied her, not seeing a single sign of aggression from her. "And I should trust you?"

"No." Veya's mouth tightened into the faintest smile. "You shouldn't trust me yet."

That answer caught Elena off guard.

Veya leaned back against the desk, keeping her distance. "But you should at least hear me out."

Elena remained in the doorway, one hand still near her clutch. Every instinct told her to leave, find Victor, and tell someone what she'd seen. Yet something about Veya's composure made her hesitate. She had been caught with a lock pick in her hand, and somehow she still looked more concerned about what Elena might discover than about being caught.

"What are you looking for?" Elena asked.

Veya's expression changed. For a moment, she seemed to weigh whether she could trust Elena with the answer. Her eyes dropped to the safe, then lifted again, meeting Elena's gaze.

"I'm not robbing anyone." Veya's voice was flat. "I don't want his money." She tapped the pick against the lock, the small metallic click carrying through the quiet office. "I just need information."

Elena stared at her. Information. The word settled uneasily in her mind as pieces she'd been struggling to connect suddenly shifted into place. Veya hadn't come for money, jewelry, or anything that could be sold. She had gone straight for Sebastian's safe, looking for something hidden behind a lock. Something important enough to risk being caught for. Elena felt a slow chill move through her as she realized she might not be the only person in this room looking for answers.

Her eyes narrowed. "Eros."

Veya froze. The pick stopped against the lock, and the calm expression she'd been carefully maintaining slipped for the briefest moment. Her eyes lifted to Elena's, searching her face as if trying to understand how she knew the name. Then her features settled again, but the silence between them had changed.

"You know what it is," Veya said.

"Yes." Elena stepped forward, one slow step into the office, letting the door swing shut behind her. The click of the latch felt louder than it should have. "I know it's a drug and it’s tied to this club."

"Tied to this club." Veya laughed, a short, sharp sound with no humor in it. "That's a polite way of putting it."

"How would you put it?"

Veya finally moved, pulling the pick from the lock and sitting back on her heels. She looked up at Elena, and the calculation in her eyes had shifted—less guarded now, more curious. "I'd put it like this. Your friend Hart is running it through here. I just need to find out where it goes."

"Where it goes?"

"Where it's shipped. Where it's stored. Who's moving it." Veya's jaw tightened as she glanced toward the safe. "I had a friend who was working the streets. Then she disappeared."

Elena's expression changed.

Veya looked back at her, the calmness in her voice beginning to give way to something more personal. "No one knows where she went, and no one is interested in finding out why for a lowlife like us." Her fingers tightened around the lock pick. "Alaric thinks she was pulled into something bigger. Human trafficking."

Elena's stomach tightened.

Veya held her gaze. "That's what I'm trying to find out. Where they took her, who's moving them, and whether Eros has anything to do with it."

"Human trafficking," Elena repeated quietly.

The pieces were beginning to fit together, but one question remained. If Veya was looking for her missing friend and believed Eros was connected to what had happened to her, then Sebastian's safe had to contain something she needed. Elena's gaze shifted toward the open frame and the lock Veya had been working on.

"Why Sebastian's safe?" she asked.

"Because Sebastian is the largest Eros dealer in the Underworld." Her voice dropped as she glanced toward the safe. Her expression tightened before she looked back at Elena. "That's why I need to get into—"

The door swung open.

Sebastian Hart stood in the frame, his hand still on the handle, his hazel eyes moving from Elena to Veya and back again. His smile flickered, uncertain. "Elena—I wasn’t sure where you went. How did you—"

Then his eyes saw the safe. The open picture frame. The pick in Veya's hand.

"Veya!"

1234567890

The name came out flat. Hard. A door slamming shut.

Veya's hand moved toward her pocket.

"Don't," Sebastian said. He set the glass down on a side table with a click that sounded louder than it should have. "Don't you dare."

He started forward, and there was nothing warm about him now — the charm stripped away, leaving something colder underneath. Elena saw his hands curl into fists at his sides.

"You have some nerve," he said, his voice low and controlled. "Breaking into my office? After everything—"

"Sebastian." The voice came from the doorway. Alaric Orleth pushed past Sebastian, tall and pale in his tailored suit, his blue eyes flicking from Veya to the open wall safe and finally to Elena. He stepped between Sebastian and the girl, one hand raised to stop him.

"Get out of my way, Orleth."

"We’re not here to rob you."

"She's at my safe with a lock-pick in her hand. What exactly would you call that?"

"A last resort," Alaric said. "We tried working with you. You refused." His voice remained calm, carrying that quiet weight Elena had noticed at the auction—the voice of a man used to being listened to. "She wasn't trying to take anything from you. We’re looking for—"

Sebastian's jaw tightened. "I don't care what she's looking for. She's trying to break into my—"

"Stop!" Elena's voice cut through the room, sharper than she'd intended. Everyone turned to look at her.

She stepped forward, putting herself between Sebastian and the others, facing him directly. Her heart was pounding, but her voice came out steady.

"Everyone needs to stop arguing. Right now."

Sebastian stared at her. "Elena, this doesn't concern you. You should go back to the auction."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You don't understand what's happening here."

"Then explain it to me."

He opened his mouth, closed it. His eyes flicked to Alaric, to Veya, back to her. The anger was still there, but something else was creeping in — a calculation, a weighing of options.

"This isn't something you're involved in," he said finally.

"You're right. It's not." Elena held his gaze. "But I've been dragged into this whether I wanted to be or not. I'm already in the middle of it, and I'm not walking away until I understand what the hell is going on."

The silence stretched. Somewhere deeper in the building, a sudden roar of applause rose through the walls, followed by distant cheers and the muffled crack of the auctioneer's gavel. Another piece had just sold.

"She's looking for information about Eros," Elena said. "And I think you know something about it."

The words somehow landed like a grenade. Sebastian's face went still — the careful, practiced stillness of a man who'd just been blindsided and was trying to hide it. Alaric's eyes widened a fraction. Veya watched her with something new in her expression, something almost like respect.

"Where did you hear that name?" Sebastian asked.

1234567890

Elena held his gaze. The question hung between them, and she could feel the weight of it—the name she'd just spoken landing in the room like a stone in still water.

"I was drugged with it," she said.

The silence that followed was absolute. Sebastian's face went through three expressions in the span of a heartbeat—disbelief, then calculation, then something that looked almost like guilt. Alaric's hand, still raised between Sebastian and Veya, lowered slowly to his side.

"You were—" Sebastian started.

"Drugged. Yes." Elena's voice stayed steady, though her hands had found each other, fingers laced tightly together. "I woke up confused and disoriented. Liam told me someone had drugged me. Somehow, they put it in my sheets. But I don't know who did it. I still don't."

She let the words settle.

"I don't know who. I don't know why. But I know it was Eros. And I know I'm done being in the dark about it."

Sebastian's jaw worked. He glanced at Alaric, then at Veya, then back to Elena. "Elena—"

"So I'll ask you again." She took a step closer, and the distance between them closed to just a few feet. "What do you know about Eros?"

Sebastian stared at her for a long moment. Somewhere in the club beyond, the auction crowd erupted in another round of applause, muffled and distant. He seemed to hear it, seemed to remember where he was, what he was supposed to be doing tonight.

"You should sit down," he said.

"I'm fine standing."

"Humor me."

He moved to the desk, pulled out the chair behind it, and gestured to the one across from him. Elena didn't move. Alaric and Veya remained where they were, watching the exchange like spectators at a tennis match.

"I'm not going to sit until you tell me what I need to know," Elena said.

Sebastian let out a breath. He ran a hand through his light brown hair, and for the first time since she'd met him, he looked tired. Not the practiced exhaustion of a host who'd been charming guests all night—something real underneath.

"Eros isn't what you think it is," he said.

"Then tell me what it is."

"It's a drug created by the Thorns."

The words still hit Elena hard, even though she already knew the Thorns were behind it. She knew what the drug was supposed to do—a powerful aphrodisiac, something designed to heighten desire and sensation. Beyond that, she knew almost nothing.

And Sebastian knew something she didn't. She needed to hear more.

"Thorn Pharmaceuticals. The legitimate arm." Sebastian leaned back against the desk, crossing his arms. "Years ago, they developed it as a replacement for the drugs flooding the streets. Something body-safe. Something that wouldn't kill people the way cut heroin, fentanyl, and the other synthetic drugs flooding the streets were."

"A replacement drug."

"A cleaner one. No lethal additives. No overdose risk. They wanted to push the dangerous stuff out of the market and replace it with something that wouldn't leave bodies in the streets."

Elena's mind was racing. "That's what the Amor research was about."

Sebastian's eyebrows rose. "Amor?" Sebastian studied her for a moment, something shifting in his expression. "You know more than I thought."

"I'm figuring it out."

"The problem," he said slowly, "wasn't the drug itself. It was what people realized they could use it for. Once it got into the wrong hands, traffickers started using it on people. It could be given without killing them, without leaving them barely conscious. They could keep someone compliant and still have them functional enough to move, work, or be sold."

Veya stepped forward before Sebastian could say anything else. "That's why we're here."

Alaric glanced at her, but she kept her eyes on Elena.

"My friend disappeared a few weeks ago," Veya said. Her voice had lost some of its earlier edge. "We found out she was being moved through people connected to the trade. We think they used the drug on her."

Her fingers curled at her sides.

Elena watched her for a moment, the pieces slowly falling into place. Veya hadn't broken into the safe for money. She'd been looking for something that might lead her to her friend. But that only raised another question.

If the drug had started as something legitimate, how had it ended up in the hands of traffickers?

"And the Thorns?"

"The Thorns have been trying to clean up the drugs on the street." He met her eyes, and there was something almost apologetic in his. "I'm one of their largest distributors in the—"

"Distributor," Veya laughed, cutting him off. "You're one of the onesly on in the Underworld."

"Underworld," Elena said, picking up on the name Veya had just mentioned again.

Sebastian's mouth snapped shut. His eyes widened, the careful composure cracking for just a moment.

"You're one of their largest distributors in the Underworld," she finished.

For a long moment, no one moved. Sebastian stared at her as if she'd just pulled a gun on him. Alaric, who had been silent since Elena started speaking, took a step forward, his blue eyes sharp.

"Where did you hear that word?" Sebastian demanded.

"It doesn't matter where I heard it."

"It matters to me." His voice was harder now, the charm completely gone. "That's not a word that gets thrown around casually. That's a word that gets people killed."

Elena held his gaze. "Then maybe you should be more careful about who you surround yourself with."

The accusation hung in the air. Sebastian's jaw tightened, and for a moment she thought he might argue, might deny it. But instead, he just shook his head slowly, a man caught in a lie he hadn't even told yet.

"How long have you known?" he asked.

"Long enough."

"And you still came to my auction. You still stood in my club and curated my art."

"I came because I wanted answers." Elena's voice was quiet, steady. "And now I'm getting them."

Alaric stepped forward then, moving between Elena and Sebastian with the easy authority of someone used to being in control. His blue eyes found hers, and she saw the calculation there—the same assessing gaze she'd noticed at the auction, the same quiet weight.

"Elena," he said, his voice low. "How much has Thorn brought you into all this?"

"What?"

"Liam Thorn. The man you work for." Alaric's gaze was intent. "How much does he tell you? How much does he trust you with?"

Elena's stomach tightened. She thought of Liam's coded notebook, hidden in her bag. His mother's journal, tucked behind a painting in the library. The way he'd looked at her on the boat, the way he'd kissed her, the way he'd said her name like it meant something.

"That's none of your business," she said.

"It is if you're standing in the middle of this." Alaric gestured between Sebastian and Veya. "If you know about Eros, if you know about the Underworld, then you're in deeper than you realize. And if Thorn knows you're looking into any of this—"

"He doesn't." Elena's voice cut through his. "He should know I’m at this auction, but he doesn’t know I'm here asking these questions."

The words slipped out before she could stop them. She saw the surprise flicker across Alaric's face, while Sebastian's expression shifted from suspicion to something more complicated.

"He doesn't know," Alaric repeated.

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I want answers." Elena looked from Alaric to Sebastian, her voice firm. "I've been stumbling through the dark for weeks, trying to piece together what's happening. I've been drugged. I've been lied to. I've been manipulated by people who think I'm too naive to notice."

She took a breath.

"And what exactly do you think you're going to find?" Alaric spoke up.

"I don't know yet." Elena looked at him.

"Then you don't understand what you're stepping into."

"Maybe not." Her gaze moved between him and Sebastian. "But you do."

Neither man answered. Elena's eyes settled on Sebastian. So start at the beginning."