Beauty and the Devil

chapter 24

Clyde’s POV

9 Circles still smells like citrus cleaner and champagne — sharp, acidic, artificial. It used to smell like money. Now it smells like what’s left after women have given too much.

The lights are off. Most of the furniture’s already covered in sheets. The girls haven’t left, not all of them. Claire’s sprawled across the main booth with her phone, scrolling like she’s not waiting for anything in particular. Two dancers are parked at the bar. One bartender’s folding napkins without looking down. No music. No movement. Just quiet, stale air and the weight of something already finished.

I walk through slow.

Everyone knows the club is done. They just haven’t said it out loud. I haven’t either.

Claire’s eyes follow me as I move across the room. She looks like she expects me to say something important. I don’t. There’s nothing left to say.

The club didn’t go under from pressure. Not from police, not from debt. I could’ve fought all that. What killed it was letting her go.

I stop in front of the stage.

It’s spotless. Pole still clean. Lights still mounted. I used to stand right here and know every angle of this room. Every drink order, every security blind spot, every girl’s strengths and tells. And then she showed up — too tense to flirt, too proud to fake it — and suddenly the room wasn’t mine anymore.

She walked onto this stage like she didn’t belong and danced like she didn’t care. I should’ve sent her home that first night. But I didn’t. I watched her. The way she moved like she was holding her breath. Like she was trying not to be seen and somehow became the only thing I could look at.

She didn’t know how to seduce. That’s what made it work. She was all nerves and fight and control. And I wanted her anyway. I wanted her more for every inch she tried to protect.

She made this place hers without touching a thing. And when she left, it felt like she took the whole building with her.

I tried to stay cold. I tried to stay smart. But the second she pulled that door shut behind her, I started losing grip on everything else. That was the start of it.

Now I’m shutting it all down.

The office is half-packed. Paperwork in boxes. Safes untouched. Nothing I need that can’t be replaced. I keep thinking I’ll torch the place, but I never do it. I just walk the floor and remember where she stood.

I take out my phone to call the driver — and it vibrates before I can tap the screen.

Aaron.

One image. No text.

I open it.

It takes less than a second.

A couch. Warm light. The blanket from the safehouse closet. A half-empty mug. Her.

Samantha.

She’s asleep. Curled up. Breathing soft. One hand near her chest. Her hair tucked behind her ear.

The blanket’s been moved. It’s not how she would’ve left it. Someone was with her when she fell asleep. Someone tucked her in.

Aaron’s coat is draped over the back of the chair.

I stare at the photo.

My jaw tightens. Something sharp coils in my stomach.

That apartment was supposed to be the one place she didn’t need to keep her guard up. That was the whole point. I set it up, I paid for every lock, every camera, every safe detail — so that she could breathe.

She let him in.

She let him in.

There’s no caption. No threat. Just the image. And it’s enough.

I stare at it until the screen fades to black. I don’t open it again.

Behind me, Claire finally speaks.

“So this is it?” she asks. Her voice is calm. Not mean. Just tired. “You’re walking away?”

I don’t respond.

She shifts in the booth. “I get it. She got under your skin. I’ve seen it before. But this place—this was yours.”

I turn to look at her. “I built a place she had to survive,” I say. “Not one she wanted to stay in.”

Claire sits up straighter, folding her arms.

“You think she’s coming back?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell are you still doing here?”

I don’t answer. Not because I don’t have one — but because I don’t trust what I’ll say if I start.

Because I still want her.

Even now. After all of it. I want her back in my space, in my hands, where I can see her and touch her and make sense of her again.

But she’s sleeping under someone else’s coat.

So I say nothing.