Chapter 8 - 12
The white light grows, making the darkness retreat.
I come into the brightness, and the space widens up to an opulent expanse. My eyes glide up the glittering columns reflecting on the white limestone floor. Traditional grandeur paired with contemporary glamor. The textured black glazed walls stretch to over thirty feet high, its knife-edged planes fitted with glowing LED strips. A dramatic spiral staircase coils around an exclosure at the one end.
"Black rose."
The woman beckons. She sits behind a desk carved from a slab of onyx.
I approach warily.
"Your bag, please."
"Excuse me?"
"Your bag," she repeats without compromise. "You will have it when you leave."
I return my phone and place my clutch bag on the hunk of stone. She takes it and her eyes point to a large Tudor archway to my left. I take her mute instruction and I follow it, not that I need to. An allure of sultry, slow, and reverb music entices me with every thumping beat. I emerge in a high-ceilinged ballroom like some elite, underground restaurant with sets of tables and velvet black chairs arranged on the margins of the room. Completely empty except for the man standing in the center of what seems to be the entertainment area or the dancefloor.
I take another breath and approach him.
"You’re a paranoid man," I say to his back.
He turns around with a daunting and devilish smirk. His midnight-black hair is styled slick like it’s wet with a middle parting, strands like streaks of ink cascading down his forehead. He pushes his hair back with a comb of his hand. He’s dressed in all-black. His black shirt is unbuttoned just enough to see a peek of a silver chain ornamenting his sinewed chest.