OWNED AFTER MIDNIGHT

The bass throbbed through the walls like a second heartbeat.

Velvet curtains parted for them, revealing a world far from suburbia—where money smelled like perfume and power had a pulse. The air was thick with cigars, whispers, and lust. Men in suits lounged like kings. Women floated between them like smoke—beautiful, controlled, owned.

Grace moved through the club like she didn’t belong, and somehow that made her the most dangerous thing in the room.

Ava was already adapting. She walked like she was born to dominate attention, her black dress clinging to her like sin. Sam stayed close to the shadows, wide-eyed but holding herself steady.

They were escorted to the bar where Cain’s right-hand man, **Luca**, waited—tall, charming, with a mouth that looked like it could ruin you.

“New toys,” he said, eyeing them up and down. “Boss said you were a good investment.”

Ava arched a brow. “He say anything about keeping your eyes to yourself?”

Luca smirked. “If I wanted sweet, I’d go back to church.”

He handed them trays—shot glasses, whiskey tumblers, fresh cigars—and nodded toward the private booths. “Go work. Look good. Make the right people smile.”

Grace moved first. Every step felt like an act. Every glance a performance.

She reached a booth and leaned down to deliver a drink. The man in the seat looked at her like she was something to unwrap slowly. His fingers brushed her thigh.

Grace didn’t flinch.

She leaned closer, whispering into his ear, voice low and warm. “Touch me again, and you’ll lose that hand.”

He laughed—delighted. “You’ve got fire.”

She smiled. Cain wanted her to play? She’d play the game. She’d burn the damn board if she had to.

Later, back in the dressing room, they peeled off their tight dresses, skin sticky with sweat and tension. Grace sat down hard on the velvet bench, exhaling deeply. Her feet throbbed. Her spine ached.

And yet… something inside her was *awake*.

Ava tossed her heels across the room. “I haven’t felt this alive in months.”

Sam laughed—almost manically. “I got offered twenty grand to sit in someone’s lap. I said no. He tipped me five hundred anyway.”

They were quiet for a second.

Then Grace whispered, “This is how it starts, isn’t it?”

“How what starts?” Ava asked.

Grace looked at herself in the mirror. At the red lipstick smudged on her mouth. At the marks on her collarbone from someone’s hungry fingers.

“Losing who we were.”

A knock came at the door. Then Cain’s voice, low and smooth: “Grace. My office. Now.”

Ava and Sam turned toward her, startled.

Grace stood.

She didn’t ask why.

She just went.

Cain’s office was dim, the city lights glowing through floor-to-ceiling glass behind him. He didn’t look up when she walked in.

“You did well tonight,” he said. “Better than I expected.”

She closed the door behind her. “Was I supposed to fail?”

Cain finally looked at her.

He stood slowly, walking around the desk, stopping inches from her. His eyes trailed over her—neck, lips, bare shoulders.

“Everyone breaks eventually, Grace. I’m just curious what it’ll take to break *you*.”

He reached out. Tucked a stray curl behind her ear. His fingers brushed her skin—too soft for a man who commanded fear.

Grace didn’t step back.

She didn’t breathe.

“Do you want me to break?” she whispered.

Cain’s lips curled into something feral. “No,” he said. “I want to *bend* you. Slowly. Until you forget what straight ever felt like.”

Heat coiled in her belly. Not fear—something darker. Desire. Fury. Curiosity.

He leaned in.

Not a kiss.

Just his breath on her throat, his mouth hovering over skin he didn’t touch.

“You’re not ready,” he said quietly.

And then he stepped back and turned his back to her.

“Get some rest. Tomorrow, it gets real.”

Grace left without looking back.

But her legs were shaking when she closed the door.By the time Grace got home, it was after 2 a.m.

The house was dark. Still. Too quiet.

She dropped her keys in the bowl by the door and slipped off her heels. Her thighs were sore. Her hair still smelled faintly of cologne and smoke. Her skin tingled from every glance, every whispered demand, every finger that had grazed too close.

She padded upstairs in silence.

Ryan, her husband, was asleep in bed. Or pretending to be. She couldn't tell anymore.

"You're late," he muttered, not opening his eyes.

"Sorry. Ava and Sam... wine turned into gossip."

He grunted. "You’ve been out with them a lot lately."

She slid off her clothes and stepped into the ensuite bathroom, her reflection catching her off guard in the mirror—red lips slightly swollen, a small bruise on her shoulder from where one of the club’s guests had gripped her too hard. Cain’s eyes flashed in her memory. The way he watched her. Controlled her.

*You're mine now.*

She turned on the shower, letting the water scald the guilt off her skin.

Across town, Ava was on top of her husband, Ethan, riding him with slow, deliberate movements. His hands gripped her hips, needy and clueless.

She moaned low in her throat, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

She wasn't thinking of him.

She was thinking of Luca—his cocky smirk, his wandering hands as she poured him scotch earlier, the way he’d pulled her into a shadowed corner and whispered in her ear, “Tell me to stop, and I will.”

She hadn’t told him to stop.

He hadn’t gone inside her. But his mouth had found places Ethan hadn’t touched in months.

Now, she used the memory to finish what her husband could never start.

“God, Ava,” Ethan gasped.

She smiled in the dark, her voice silk. “I know, baby. I missed you too.”

Sam wasn’t with her husband. Not tonight.

She’d told Eric she was staying at Ava’s—“Girl’s wine night. Too many margaritas.” He’d texted her a thumbs-up and a “love you.” He was too tired to question anything anymore.

She was curled up in Cain’s club lounge, her phone off, her hand between her thighs, remembering the way one of Cain’s clients had dragged his fingers slowly down her back while she delivered his drink.

He hadn’t even looked at her face. Just her body.

And the twisted part?

She *liked* it.

She came with a quiet moan, ashamed and aching.

Then she wiped her hand, straightened her skirt, and fixed her lipstick.

In three different bedrooms, three women lied to the men who thought they knew them.

Their husbands still believed they were wives.

But tonight?

They were property. Playthings. Pawns in Cain Russo’s kingdom of vice.

And they were starting to enjoy it.