Sutton

The bright overhead lights shine down on me as my fingers dance along the ebony and ivory keys of the grand piano. Hungry gazes trail over my body and I fight the shiver that threatens to roll through me.

I close my eyes against the harshness of the glare and the lascivious stares; I don't need to watch as I play anyway. I've been playing piano ever since I can remember. I have a set of twenty or so songs memorized, and I perform some combination of them every Friday and Saturday night at my father's club.

As the song comes to a close, I play the last few notes with a flourish before glancing around the room and making eye contact with as many of the smarmy, borderline creepy male customers as possible as I begin the next song in my set.

I hear my father's voice echoing in my head. Sutton, sweetheart, you want to make them feel welcome in our establishment. On Saturday nights, you're the entertainment they get with the main event.

The main event...I don't know why he doesn't just say it. The strippers. My dad owns high-end "gentleman's clubs" that have helped make him one of the wealthiest men in New York City. It is what it is. It doesn't bother me.

Except when the men leer at me with lust in their eyes.

I've tried to tell my dad that I don't want to perform this late, but he won't listen. He says that the "classical music juxtaposed with the sensual movements of the dancers really just sets us apart from the rest of the clubs in the city."

Please. I'm surprised my father even knows what the word juxtapose means.

Sometimes I just pretend I'm a musician in the pit on Broadway, playing in the orchestra for Hamilton or The Lion King. Piano is the only thing I've ever had that's just mine, and it's all I've ever wanted to do—go to Julliard and play on Broadway.

But Julliard is out of the question. Not when the Ring needs me. He's "appeased me" by letting me play at the club. But it isn't enough. I want to keep growing, to spread my wings.

I'm jolted from my Broadway fantasy by the familiar sensation of eyes on me, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.

I don't know what it is, but there's something about being on stage regularly that's trained me to know when people are paying attention to me and when they're just present in the room. And then when someone is really paying attention, it's obvious.

Moving my head so my hair flips over my shoulder, I wait about thirty seconds before lifting my eyes in the direction of the observer. I'm curious to see who they are and what it is they find so interesting.

I make eye contact with a middle-aged man I've never seen in the club before.

He's not one of my father's regulars. And he's looking at me with the creepiest smile on his gaunt, raggedy-looking face. Swallowing hard, I break eye contact and look back at the keys, pretending to focus on them as I finish out the song.

I will him to disappear, and when I look up again, he's gone.

Almost like he was never there to begin with.

After finishing my set, I step down from the stage, my long, black dress trailing behind me. Just like every other night, I'm whisked away and out the side door before anyone can speak to me.

"Beautiful playing tonight, Sutton," Dominique says as she ushers me into my father's Mercedes S-Class that's waiting in the alley beside the club.

As I settle into the backseat and shut the door, I look over at my bodyguard, who also happens to be my best friend, and grin. "Oh, come on, Dom. You hear me play the same damn songs every weekend."

She shrugs, tossing her braids over her shoulder and slumping in her seat, finally able to relax after watching over me all night. "That doesn't change the fact that you're a damn piano prodigy."

My cheeks heat and I stare out the window as the car rolls down the alley. "Do you think I got the part? In the orchestra?"

I couldn't convince my father to let me go to college, but last week, I convinced him to let me audition for a spot in the orchestra for Moulin Rouge!. I should be hearing something soon. If I don't get it, I will be crushed, but I have a good feeling about it.

Something tells me that convincing my father to give me this little ounce of freedom is the start of something new for me.

"No doubt in my mind, babe. There is no way they'd give that part to anyone except you. They'd be out of their minds to not want you," she says, reaching over and squeezing my knee. "You know I'm right. I always am, am I not?"

She is.

Dominique is three years older than me. She knows even more than I do how cruel this world is.

I convinced my father to hire her as my bodyguard when she graduated, and I was still in high school. Her father is a Soldier in the Ring, so obviously, that's where she was headed next. She was going to be sent overseas, but we needed her to stay here.

I needed her here.

I begged my father for weeks to hire her. He kept telling me he couldn't, that it wasn't up to him to question the Second's call. But when he saw how broken I was over losing the only other person I had in my corner after I was abandoned three years ago by someone I thought loved me...he finally relented and talked to the Second.

She was hired as my bodyguard the very next day.

Sounds like a win, but really, both of us are still trapped.

She always says we'll get out of here one day, but I've been burned enough to realize that one day is just another empty promise of a day that will never come.

Until this audition. Now, I have the smallest kernel of hope planted in my chest.

The sudden squealing of tires behind us startles me from my thoughts and I jerk my head in Dom's direction. She's now on high alert, craning her neck to see out the dark window.

"Dom, what the hell is—"

The screeching sound stops.

It's quiet for a long, painful moment.

"Is everything o—"

A loud crunch cuts through the silence as a car rams into us from behind.

I fly forward in my seat, only spared from banging my head by Dom's arm stretching across my chest.

"What the fuck?" Dominique mutters, ripping her gun from the holster on her side.

"What's going on?" I ask, voice trembling, even though I know she has just about as much idea as I do, which is zero.

"I don't know, Sutton. Just get down, okay?"

"But—"

"Don't argue right now, please. Slide down in your seat and lean over into the middle, yeah?"

I do as she says without another word because that note of panic in her voice is rare; Dominique has been blindsided.

And by the tone of Henry's voice, so has he. My father's driver is usually right on top of things, and if he had any clue there was potential trouble, he wouldn't have taken this route.

"I'm going to get to a busy street away from these jokers," he says. "This is no accident."

"Good plan."

But when I hear another screeching of tires, I know that isn't going to be possible.

"Fuck, they've blocked us in from the front," he mutters, reaching into his console for his gun. "They want something."

He glances at me in the mirror and then to Dominique, and my blood turns to ice in my veins.

"Goddamnit, this is the group Xavier and Jason were on about. I thought they were just being paranoid. Turns out they were right. Fuck!" Dominique curses, placing her fingertips on the doorhandle. "Do not get out of this car, Sutton. For any reason. Do you hear me?"

I nod, my heart slamming against my ribcage.

Thoughts zigzag through my head at a million miles a minute. What group? I haven't heard my dad and Jason talking about anything out of the ordinary, and I've grown up with Jason. He usually tells me everything, even when Dad tries to keep me in the dark.

Unless...

Fuck.

The only time Jason ever keeps anything from me is if...it's about me.

But why would this be about—

The sound of crunching broken glass from outside my door has me scrambling back toward the window. I peek out, knowing no one can see inside the illegally tinted glass.

There's a man creeping toward the car, and I stop breathing when I realize it's the same man from the club. The one who kept staring at me with that leering grin.

Jesus Christ, what in the actual fuck is going on?

Dom told me not to move, but I know this man is coming for me. I don't know why, and I don't know who these people are, but I know I have to get out of this car. I reach for the door handle closest to where Dom's standing, ready to escape.

But the skidding of more tires cutting through the alley steals my attention. I look back out my window to find a man on a Harley—leather jacket and a helmet with the visor pulled down—blocking the path of the predator.

My eyes widen as my apparent savior reaches behind him and pulls a gun from the waistband of his jeans. Two gunshots are fired into the air, and I spring up, my heart leaping to my throat.

The motorcyclist's voice is muffled, but I can make out his words. "Get the fuck away from the car, or I will shoot every one of you assholes dead right here."

The alleyway goes silent, but I can see under his arm that the predator still lurks closer.

"Get back, man," the motorcyclist threatens, voice cold as ice. "If you value your life, you don't want to take another step."

On the other side of the vehicle, Dom fires two more shots that ricochet off the cobblestone in front of the car that's blocking us in, as if to second this warning.

I don't hear what she says after, though, because suddenly I catch a glimpse of a purple phoenix flower tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of the motorcyclist's jacket. It's only visible for a moment, but it sucks the breath from my lungs.

No. It couldn't be.

In a split second, the tension shatters. The cars blocking us reverse, the predator stumbling down the alley after them.

I only just catch the license plate number on the motorcycle before the stranger kickstarts it and burns rubber, disappearing into the blur of the Manhattan night like some masked vigilante.

Dominique gets back in the car and Henry steps on the gas, tearing out onto Columbus Avenue toward our penthouse. I don't hear a damn word Dominique is saying. I'm certain she's asking me if I'm okay as she presses her hands to my cheeks and turns my face to hers.

But all I can think about is the motorcyclist. About that flower tattoo snaking around his wrist. How the romonda is the national flower of Serbia.

I always thought it was amazing that a flower could be brought back to life with just water, even when it was dying and dehydrated.

There was only one person who ever told me that story.

It must be coincidence. That couldn't have been him.

There's no way in hell the man who just saved me is the same person who left me without a trace three years ago.

My childhood best friend.

Nicolai Marković.