Chapter 16 - Talia's Fears

Raven was used to lies. She had built her career unraveling them, threading together what people didn’t say with the evidence they couldn’t hide. But Eden had become a place where the truth died quietly, and it always smelled like perfume and blood.

Talia hadn’t shown up for her shift. That alone wouldn’t be unusual, dancers flaked, got lost in substances or clients or their own chaos. But Talia didn’t just miss work, she didn’t text, didn’t answer calls and didn’t even show up in any of the usual places.

She had simply disappeared.

Raven stood in the dressing room, staring at her friend’s empty vanity. The bulbs glared above the mirror like interrogation lights. Lipstick was still open. A half-used eyelash glue bottle lay on its side. Her perfume bottle, the jasmine one, stood uncapped. None of it felt like an exit. It felt like a ghost.

“She was here last night,” said Cassie, a younger dancer curling her lashes in the mirror. “Left around three, said she was going to meet someone.”

Raven frowned. “Who?”

Cassie shrugged. “Didn’t say, just looked… weird. Like jittery. Kept checking her phone.”

Raven’s stomach turned.

After the encounter with Zane, she had spent the last two days in a whirl of doubts, barely keeping it together. But this, Talia vanishing? It yanked her right back to the original reason she came to Eden.

The missing girls. The ones no one talked about.

The ones who became whispers and cold cases. And now, one of them had a name she loved. Talia.

Raven tried calling again, but there was still no answer.

She left the dressing room and slipped into the back hallway, heading to the staff corridor. If anyone had seen Talia last, it’d be someone at the back exit, probably one of the guards or security techs.

She found Victor posted near the stairwell, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

Victor didn’t look at her. “About?”

“Talia. She’s missing.”

“She’s probably hungover.”

“No,” Raven said, stepping closer. “She left her things. She’s not answering her phone. Something’s wrong.”

Victor finally looked at her. “I’ll make some calls.”

“No. You’re going to take me to the camera room.”

“That’s not protocol.”

“Then fuck protocol.”

He stared her down for a long moment. Then nodded.

The security room was like a brain, screens lined every wall, flickering with live footage: dance floor, hallways, elevators, even the garage. Victor tapped a few keys and pulled up footage from the previous night.

They watched in silence. Talia leaving through the back staff hallway. Jacket on, purse in hand. Alone. She paused by the exit, glanced over her shoulder and then...a man stepped into frame. Tall. Hood up. Face obscured by shadow and the low camera angle.

Talia flinched. He reached for her arm. She hesitated and then followed him. They disappeared down the stairwell. That was the last footage. No license plate. No exit shot. No ID.

Just...gone.

Raven’s blood turned to ice. “Rewind that,” she whispered.

Victor did.

She stared at the man. The way he stood. The way he touched her, not like a lover, not gentle, but controlling.

Raven leaned closer to the screen. “That doesn’t look like one of Jaxon’s men.”

Victor said nothing.

“Do you recognize him?”

“No.”

“Bullshit.”

He met her eyes. “I said no.”

She clenched her fists.

Victor was loyal, but not to her, and that meant she was alone. Again.

She stormed into Jaxon’s office without knocking.

He was on the phone, but when he saw her face, he ended the call mid-sentence. “What happened?”

“Talia’s missing,” she said, voice tight. “Last night. Caught on camera leaving with someone we can’t identify.”

He stood slowly. “Gone?”

“No calls. No texts. Nothing. And your security team either doesn’t know or won’t talk.”

Jaxon walked around the desk, eyes narrowing. “Show me the footage.”

“I already did. To Victor. He lied.”

Something changed in his posture, just slightly. Like a wind shifted inside him. “You think this is connected to the others?” he asked.

Raven hesitated. “I think it’s too clean to be random.”

Jaxon exhaled. Then: “Go home. Let me handle this.”

“No,” she snapped. “That’s not enough anymore.”

He looked at her, gaze sharp. “Raven...”

“She’s my best friend. I don’t care about your rules. I want answers.”

His voice dropped. “And if the answers lead to places you don’t want to see?”

“Then I’ll go blind trying.”

Something in that broke him open, just a sliver. He reached for her hand and pulled her gently into his chest. “I will find her,” he said. “But I need time.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

It wasn’t enough for her, but it was all he’d give.

That night, Raven went to Talia’s apartment, the door was unlocked and that alone sent alarms screaming in her head.

She pushed it open slowly, stepping into the dim space. The air inside was wrong, it was still and cold, like no one had breathed it in days and yet Talia’s shoes were by the door. Her bag on the counter, even her phone was plugged in, charging, but there was no sign of her.

Her laptop was gone. Raven’s instincts screamed louder. She stepped into the bedroom. The bed was untouched. A single red scarf was curled on the floor like a dropped ribbon. The closet stood ajar. No signs of struggle. No broken glass. No blood. Just... absence.

Too clean. Too curated.

Raven’s skin prickled. Someone had been there.

Someone had erased her and they hadn’t rushed.

She returned to Eden furious, but something had shifted in the air. Whispers followed her through the halls. Eyes darted away when she passed. Even the dancers she’d once joked with offered only tight smiles.

As if she were marked now. Tainted.

Jaxon didn’t summon her that night and Zane was nowhere to be found, but someone had slid a note beneath her dressing table mirror. No envelope. Just a torn piece of linen paper with elegant handwriting: You’re not safe here anymore. Neither was she.

Raven couldn’t sleep. She paced the penthouse suite, adrenaline burning under her skin.

Every minute she spent here now felt like a risk. Not because of Jaxon, but because someone else inside Eden was moving in shadows, unseen, unchallenged and Talia’s disappearance felt like a message.

She showered in near silence, let the water scald her skin. When she came out, she caught her reflection in the mirror. Collar. Bruises. A stranger in her own skin.

She wiped the fog from the glass and stared herself down. “You can’t afford to be scared,” she whispered. “Not now.”

The next evening, she waited for Jaxon in his office. He came in after hours, suit immaculate, expression unreadable. “You’ve been quiet,” he said.

“So have you.”

He studied her. “I have men looking.”

“Then tell them to look harder, because Talia’s not the only girl who’s gone missing under this roof.”

He folded his arms. “I told you when this started, my world doesn’t operate on your timeline.”

She stood. “Then maybe I need to start asking questions outside of your world.”

The air suddenly became thick and electric.

“You’re threatening me?” he asked, voice low.

“I’m reminding you,” she said. “I came here looking for the truth and I let you distract me. Let you tie me to beds and mark me and fuck me into silence, but not anymore.”

She stepped toward him. “I want answers, Jaxon. Real ones, about Talia, about Sabine, about everything.”

His jaw clenched and then, softly: “Do you really want the truth?”

“I do.”

“Even if it shatters what we have?”

“If it’s real, it’ll survive.”

He reached into his desk drawer and tossed her a key. “Storage room. Sublevel 3. Midnight. Alone.”

She caught it midair.

“No guards?”

“No cameras.”

“What am I looking for?”

He didn’t answer, he just walked out.

At midnight, Raven slipped into Sublevel 3. It was cold and silent. The kind of silence that devoured sound.

The key opened a thick steel door at the end of a long corridor. Inside: a storage room lined with cabinets and locked drawers, and in the center was an unmarked filing cabinet.

She opened it slowly. Photos. Files. Names. Dates. Talia’s file was on top and beneath hers, were four other girls.

Same patterns.

Same employer: Club Eden.

Same outcomes: Missing.

Raven felt her knees go weak. She dropped the folder on the floor and covered her mouth. The proof was here, everything she needed to burn Eden to the ground, but at what cost?

Talia was still gone and if she exposed this now, she might never see her again.

She took the files. All of them. Stuffed them into her bag and turned to leave when she heard the lock click behind her.

Someone else was in the hall, by the sound of the slow and deliberate footsteps.

She held her breath. The light flickered. Then Zane stepped into view. He was smiling and his demeanor was way too calm.

“Going somewhere, little spy?”