Chapter 14 – Smoke, Mirrors, and a Name He Can't Forget
The lighting in the exclusive club was low, moody, almost reverent—catered toward the men who shaped the nation behind veils of cigars and whispered toasts. In a private lounge shielded by mahogany walls and silence money could buy, King Albanian sat at the center of a curved leather booth. His dark tailored suit sat crisp against his frame, his presence unchallenged, magnetic.
Around him were the powerbrokers of the country—billionaire oil moguls, a former prime minister, the sitting Central Bank chairman, and two media tycoons who practically controlled the nation's narrative. Yet even here, where influence curled like smoke from golden cigar tips, King commanded deference.
They were laughing. Talking trade policies, loopholes, and scandals too clean to touch the front pages. But King?
He wasn't listening.
He stared into his glass of untouched whisky, his gaze fixed on the amber swirl like it might reveal the face he couldn't forget.
Valerie.
"Still brooding?" asked a smooth voice beside him—General Rahim, one of the president's most trusted men and an old friend of the Albanian family. He flicked ashes from a thin cigar and leaned in. "You've been somewhere else all night, King. That's rare for you."
Another chuckled. "Must be a woman. That's the only thing that could possibly haunt someone like him."
King's jaw flexed, but he said nothing.
They'd be right.
It wasn't just a woman—it was a ghost in silk, a scent that lingered longer than it should have, a presence so fleeting yet violent it unraveled the core of a man known for never blinking twice.
A stranger with no name. No past. No trace.
And still… he couldn't think of anything else.
One of the men raised his glass. "To the Albanian Empire—the only man who can stare down the president and make the market dance."
The group laughed, and King gave a muted smirk, lifting his glass just enough to meet the toast. But when it touched his lips, the drink stayed untouched.
He was unraveling in silence.
The suite where she once stood no longer smelled of her. The walls remembered nothing. His mind betrayed him daily with the phantom touch of her fingers against his wrist, the soft scent of wild herbs, the ghost of something pure and calm that had no place in his world of ruthless precision.
"King." Lincoln's voice dropped lower, quieter. "Talk to me. If something's threatening the Albanian name, we need to know."
"It's not a threat," King murmured.
"Then what is it?"
"A ripple," he said. "One that hasn't settled."
His friends glanced at each other, unsure what to make of the cryptic tone.
In truth, King didn't know either. He only knew he hadn't slept well in weeks. He kept the hotel suite untouched. No one was allowed to enter it. He kept searching through surveillance, phone records, anything—and came up with nothing.
And yet… his body remembered. His soul wouldn't rest.
He swirled the whisky again and whispered under his breath, almost inaudible:
One of the men frowned. "Who?"
King didn't answer.
Because even he didn't have the answer to that.
Excellent choice. Kwok watching from the shadows adds a layer of intrigue and tension. Here's the continuation of Chapter 14, seamlessly shifting from King's club scene to Kwok's quiet observation:
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Kwok leaned against the dark paneled corridor just beyond the threshold of the lounge, cloaked in the quiet anonymity the shadows granted him. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop. But when the guards let him through at the mention of his name—and the briefest flash of his ID—he caught a glimpse of something he hadn't seen in his brother in a long time:
Vulnerability.
The great King Albanian, surrounded by the country's most influential men, looked... haunted.
Kwok narrowed his eyes, his arms folded across his chest. The glasses clinked, the cigars hissed, but King was somewhere else entirely. Again.
So it was about a girl.
He had heard whispers, of course. How King had walked away from deals mid-sentence, how he had moved out of his penthouse and declared a hotel suite his new domain. How he'd requested high-level traces on surveillance footage with no disclosed reason. Even Wayne looked disoriented these days.
Kwok stepped deeper into the shadow of a column, his gaze hardening as his older brother whispered that name.
There it was again.
That damn name.
He had seen the report once—by accident or maybe design—when it flickered across a secured tablet in the palace. A woman. Unknown. Untraceable. Her image had been corrupted or erased, details scarce, but one thing was clear:
She had disrupted the entire axis of King Albanian.
Kwok's mouth twitched—not quite a frown, not quite a smirk.
Was she a threat? Or a key?
And why did she hold that much power over a man who had spent his entire life immune to the touch of emotion?
His fists tightened at his sides. Kwok had always been the more emotional one, the more volatile. He had lived in King's shadow most of his life, constantly compared, consistently underestimated. But now?
Now the great King was crumbling from a single encounter.
And that was worth watching.
Not out of spite, no. But because if a woman like that existed, then Kwok needed to know what made her unforgettable. Was it a strategy? A technique? A weapon?
Or worse—was it love?
He almost scoffed at the thought. Love was poison in their world. Attachment? A liability.
Still... King was unraveling. And Kwok, always the observer, knew better than to interfere too soon. There was more to uncover.
More to understand.
And maybe—just maybe—this was the moment the tide would finally turn between them.
As one of the dignitaries cracked a joke inside and King gave a hollow chuckle, Kwok slowly turned away, his expression unreadable.
It was time to find out who Valerie really was.
Even if it meant using her.
Even if it meant finding her before King did.
Perfect. Let's dive deeper into King Albanian's internal spiral after leaving the club—a man outwardly composed, yet privately unraveling. Here's a richly detailed scene showing his descent as he exits the glittering world of the club into something darker and more personal:
--
The club's heavy doors shut behind him, silencing the cacophony of laughter, clinking glasses, and swirling cigars. King stepped into the cool night like a man slipping beneath the surface of a deep ocean. The scent of imported cologne and rare whiskey still clung to his jacket, but none of it reached him.
Wayne followed a few steps behind, saying nothing—wise enough to recognize the storm brewing inside his boss.
The black car pulled up instantly, sleek and waiting. King slid inside but didn't speak. He didn't ask for his penthouse. He didn't mention the suite. He didn't even glance at his phone.
"Drive," he said flatly, voice cold. "Nowhere."
Wayne said nothing. The driver obeyed.
The city blurred past, neon lights becoming elongated ghosts against the window, shadows melting into one another. King's fingers twitched in his lap, twitching like they were trying to hold onto something that had already slipped through them.
What was it about her?
Why can't I stop thinking about her?
He had seen hundreds of women. Thousands, even. Socialites, heirs, empresses of business. They all bled into the same shade of forgettable. But she—the girl with the quiet voice and a scent he could never name—she left a hole in his chest where his heartbeat used to be.
It wasn't love. He would never call it that. Love was the illusion the weak clung to.
This was something else.
Obsession?
No.
Need.
A maddening need to understand. To recreate that moment. The serenity he'd felt for a single heartbeat in that hotel room—like his soul had stopped vibrating for the first time in years.
And now she was gone.
No record. No face. No trace.
Even Wayne had begun to question the validity of the memory, subtly suggesting that perhaps the night had blurred too much. A drunken illusion. A beautiful ghost of his own making.
But no.
She was real.
He had her calming pill in his drawer.
He had the contract Sophia signed in his office drawer—mocking him with the fact that she wasn't the one.
And he remembered the heat in his veins when he opened the hotel room door, drawn like a man possessed.
King's hand reached inside his coat pocket. He brought out the tiny ceramic vial. Smooth. Cool. Still faintly scented. The source of his calm… and his torment.
His grip tightened until his knuckles turned white.
"What did you do to me?" he whispered, staring at the vial. "Who are you?"
The car rolled through a tunnel of streetlamps. The moment of silence pressed into his bones.
Then, without warning, King leaned forward.
"Wayne," he said. "Check every security detail again. Not just from that night. Every day leading up to it. Track who went in and out of the spa wing. Staff. Guests. Maintenance."
Wayne's voice was low, tense. "Yes, sir."
"I want her found. Discreetly. Quietly. This doesn't go beyond us."
"Yes, sir."
But even as he gave the order, a bitter thought wormed into the back of King's mind:
What if she doesn't want to be found?
What if she left because she knew the kind of man he was? And didn't want to be touched by him?
The idea stung more than he cared to admit.
He shut his eyes.
For a moment, King Albanian—untouchable, unstoppable, unrivaled—felt small.
And in that moment, in the back of a car slicing through the midnight streets, he realized he had just become a prisoner of his own desire.
And that lady—whoever she truly was—held the key.