Cael moved first. That was how it tended to work. Zain made the assessments, Riven acted on instinct, and Cael built the bridge between the two. He was already thinking, already several steps ahead, already constructing the architecture of what needed to happen next by the time Riven had stopped staring at the glass long enough to look at him.
He pressed the discreet call button on the arm of his chair. Within ninety seconds, a bar attendant appeared at the lounge door....a young man who had the particular controlled blankness of staff who worked establishments like Sinners, who had learned that seeing less was both professional and self-preserving.
"The manager," Cael said. "I'd like to speak with him."
The young man nodded and disappeared without a word.
Cael picked up his scotch. Took a single measured sip. Set it down.
Across from him, Riven had finally sat....perched on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, all of that restless energy now compressed into something focused and still, which was in many ways more unnerving than the pacing. His dark eyes kept moving to the window. To the stage below.
Zain hadn't moved at all.
The manager arrived in four minutes....a broad-shouldered man named Kenneth who ran Sinners with the efficiency of someone who understood that his clientele required discretion and his continued wellbeing depended on providing it. He'd dealt with high-profile supernatural clients before. He had not, in his twelve years managing this establishment, dealt with the Blackwood brothers specifically, but he knew who they were the moment he walked through the door in the way that everyone in their world knew who the Blackwoods were.
He kept his expression professional.
"Gentlemen," he said. "How can I assist you this evening?"
Cael didn't waste time on preamble. He looked at Kenneth with those dark green eyes that gave nothing away and said, simply, "The dancer currently on the main stage. We'd like an exclusive arrangement."
Kenneth kept his expression neutral. "I appreciate your interest. I'm afraid Eva doesn't offer exclusive...."
"We're aware," Cael said. "That's why I asked you to come up, rather than going through the standard request channels."
Kenneth waited.
Cael reached forward and set something on the table between them....not cash, nothing so crude. A card, matte black, with a single number printed on it. A number that represented an amount that made Kenneth's professional composure work significantly harder than usual to maintain.
"A six-month exclusive contract," Cael said. "Two million dollars. Present it to her as an offer. Tonight, after her set."
Kenneth looked at the card for a moment. Then at Cael. Then he couldn't quite help it....looked at Zain, who had not moved or spoken or acknowledged his presence in any way, which was somehow the most unsettling part of the entire interaction.
"I'll speak with her," Kenneth said carefully.
"That's all we're asking," Cael replied. "Thank you, Kenneth."
The dismissal was courteous and absolute. Kenneth picked up the card, excused himself, and left the lounge.
In the silence that followed, Riven let out a slow breath.
"Two million," he said. Not a question, not a complaint. Almost like he was tasting the number.
"It's the number she'll say yes to," Cael said simply.
"You don't know that."
Cael's eyes cut to his brother with a look that said ''don't I,'' then moved back to the window. Back to the stage.
Back to her.
Riven didn't push. Because Cael was right, the way Cael was almost always right about these things....the calculations, the thresholds, the exact point at which a person's need would overcome their resistance. It wasn't cruelty. It was accuracy. And two million dollars, Riven suspected, was a number that would cross whatever line Eva Santos had drawn for herself.
He hated, slightly, that he already wanted her to have a reason to say no.
He sat with that feeling for a moment. Examined it. Then filed it away where it wouldn't interfere.
Below, the set was drawing toward its end. The music was shifting toward its final movement.
None of the three brothers looked away.
****
The knock on Kenneth's office door came twenty minutes after Eva left the stage.
She'd done her cool-down. Changed out of her stage costume into street clothes....dark jeans, a cropped top, her hair unpinned and falling around her face in a cloud of loose coils. She'd been planning to find Maya, have the conversation they'd been circling all night, and then collect her bag and go home to the quiet of her apartment and the stack of papers on the counter she wasn't ready to read again.
Instead, she was sitting across from Kenneth's desk while he looked at her with an expression she'd never quite seen on his face before — careful, and something underneath the careful that might have been concern.
"There's an offer," he said. "I want you to hear me out before you respond."
Eva crossed her legs. Settled her hands in her lap. "Okay."
"A private contract. Exclusive, six months. Five nights a week."
She already knew what she was going to say. She'd been approached before....not like this, never through Kenneth directly, but she'd had clients try to propose exclusives before and her answer had always been the same. She opened her mouth.
"Two million dollars," Kenneth said.
Eva closed it.
The office was very quiet for a moment. She could still hear the bass from the floor, distant and muffled, the club's heartbeat continuing without her.
"I'm sorry?" she said.
"Two million," Kenneth repeated. "For six months. Exclusive contract."
Eva looked at him. She was good at reading rooms, good at reading faces, it was a survival skill that dancing had sharpened into something close to instinct. Kenneth wasn't joking. Kenneth, in twelve years, had never once made a joke in this office.
Two million dollars.
She thought about the paper on her kitchen counter. The new treatment the oncologist had mentioned, the one that wasn't covered by her mothers's insurance, the one that was currently an abstract possibility because the word unaffordable had kept it from becoming a real conversation. She thought about the specific way her mother's hand had felt in hers two days ago, lighter than it should be, the skin thinner.
She thought about what two million dollars would do to every single problem currently stacked on her shoulders.
And then she thought about what a six-month exclusive with a supernatural client meant, and the scale tipped back.
"Who?" she asked.
Kenneth was quiet for a moment. Another tell.
"Kenneth." Her voice was flat. "Who is making this offer."
He folded his hands on the desk. "The Blackwood brothers."
The name landed in the room like a stone into still water.