“An exception,” Luka said. He settled his hand at the small of my back, steady and unambiguous.
“She’s with you then?”
He nodded once. “I’ll vouch. She’ll sign the forms.”
She produced a black matte folder and slid it across the marble counter. “Read. Sign. Initial every page. Masks required at all times. No legal names inside the club. Mobiles stay locked here. No exceptions. Anonymity is our first and last rule.”
Inside the folder were three sheets of dense legalese—waivers, indemnity, code of conduct. My eyes snagged on the bolded lines:
No photos. No recordings. No disclosure.
What happens within The Ferryman remains here.
Violation results in immediate, permanent expulsion.
I felt Luka’s presence at my shoulder—quiet, grounding.
The receptionist tapped the final page. “Now, collars. Uncollared guests are considered open invitations.” Her eyes flicked to me, then Luka. “If you don’t want her approached, she’ll need to wear your mark.”
“Noted.”
Luka produced a simple banded collar—red leather, no frills, polished hardware—and snapped it once between his hands. The leather smelled new, a faint copper tang of untanned hide.
He turned it once in his palms, then lifted his eyes to mine with no question in his gaze. I held still as he buckled it at my throat. The fit was snug, alien, but not suffocating. He palmed the side of my neck, thumb brushing the collar’s edge, sealing the claim.
He handed me a mask and donned one of his own—a half-face in black matte, hard lines, stripped of anything decorative. Like Batman minus the ears.
“Put it on.”
Instead, I stared. I’d expected the mask to diminish him, to blur him into anonymity. It did the opposite. With the restof his features obscured, all that remained was the blue fire of his eyes and the hard lines of his mouth. Want hit me, sharp and immediate. The mask distilled every fragment of him that compelled me, and weaponized it.
I must have stared too long.
Luka stepped close. So close I could taste the air off his skin—leather and the clean, charged scent of his cologne.
“When we’re in this club,” he said, tone flat and iron-edged, “you’ll do exactly what I tell you. Without exception. It’s how I keep you safe.” A beat. “I suggest you start now.”
My mask was satin-lined, the exterior black velvet that caught the light. I slid it on, feeling the fabric press in at my cheekbones and brow. My vision narrowed, the periphery dissolved into shadow.
The world fell away with it.
There was something dangerously freeing about it all—how hiding my face let the rest of me unravel in plain sight.
“Better,” Luka said, voice pitched for me alone. He stepped back, scanning me. “Last chance to back out.” There was no challenge in it. “If you want to leave, say it now.”
“If I didn’t want to go in, I wouldn’t have asked you to bring me.”
He nodded once, then turned to the desk. “She’s good.”
The receptionist reached under the counter. A loud click reverberated in the room as the black lacquered door eased open. The music swelled. My pulse followed.
Before we stepped through, Luka fastened a red leather band around his wrist.
“What does that mean?” I asked, nodding toward it.
Luka’s mouth shifted slightly beneath the mask. “It means I’m not open to approach,” he answered. “Theoretically.” Before I could ask what he meant by that, he leaned in, his form-fittingleather shirt rasping against my shoulder. “I’ve never worn one here before.”
He didn’t reach for the door—just stood there, gaze fixed on my face like he could taste every micro-expression through the mask.