Page 125 of His Fury

It should’ve been an easy no. But she was right. And Rye was right. She was already part of this—no matter how much I wanted to keep her apart from it.

I raked a hand across my jaw, tension biting behind my eyes. “This doesn’t become routine.”

“Of course not,” she said immediately. “Rye would kill me when I outperformed him in his own venue.” She smiled when Rye grunted. “Just one night.”

But we all knew nothing in this world ever stayedjust one night.

“The booths?” I asked Rye. “Who?”

He knew what I was asking, and I saw him try to hide his smile. She might have handled twenty-first birthday celebrations, but I doubted she’d ever dealt with the more depraved sexual quirks of some of our clientele. Rye rattled off two off-season sports stars along with their usual entourage; they occupied two booths. The others were low-flying yuppies who thought they had more cash andpullthan they actually did.

“Fine.” I nodded. “Okay, let’s talk logistics.” I looked down at Isla. “Do you have time to stay, or do you need to go back to The Grand?”

“I need to go back. Gerard and I are meeting with the architect for the yurts.” She saw my look. “Not Julian,” she added hastily. “He would never stoop so low as to design for something as banal as glamping.” Her smile was a mix of bitterness and sadness. She reached up, brushing her lips over mine. “You’ll be at the house later?”

“I’ll see you after you finish work,” I promised, both of us knowing I meant her work, not mine. I pulled her back when she tried to move and kissed her deeper, not caring that Ryewas in the room. “I’m sending Jayden with you.” I placed my finger over her lips to stop the protest. “No arguments.”

Isla narrowed her eyes as she looked up at me. “He lied to me.”

“When?”

“Today, he said you weren’t here, and you were.”

Rye covered his laugh with a cough, and I fought my own smile. “That’s what I pay him for, but I’ll tell him not to do it with you again.”

She was going to protest; instead, she kissed me again, said goodbye to Rye, and left to meet Jayden downstairs.

I headed back to my desk, Rye following me, his silence louder than usual. I texted Jayden to go with Isla when she left and sat down.

I leaned back against the leather chair and pulled up the floor schematics on my laptop screen. Elixir’s upper level was secure—Isla would have access to everything she needed without ever stepping near the lower club or the hallway behind it. Still, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like her being on-site while everything else moved in the shadows.

Especially when I wasn’t here.

“She won’t see anything,” Rye said finally. I didn’t answer. “She’s not an idiot. She knows this isn’t a goddamn charity.”

“She’s not like us,” I muttered, pulling out blueprints for another building.

“She’s with you,” he said. “So…she’s going to need to adapt.”

My jaw ticked as I unrolled the document. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“Plans change.”

I looked at the screen, my hands clenched on either side of the keyboard. Every part of this felt like walking a tightropein a storm. One misstep and the fall would be long. And I wouldn’t be falling alone.

“The phone call?” I asked, my voice low.

Rye nodded. “We expected it. The call was premature—someone testing our movement? It didn’t come from our side.”

I swore under my breath. “They’re watching us…or watching her.”

“Or both.”

I looked down at the digital blueprint again. Isla’s name was already on the roster for my club. A placeholder. A fiction. But now it was real. “She’s handling it,” I said flatly.

“Yeah,” Rye replied. “She’s doing better than I thought someone like her would.”

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

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