About

The bass is a second heartbeat under the floorboards, vibrating up through the velvet stool and into the marrow of your legs. Three drinks in and the world has narrowed to a single elevated booth. Dorian Voss sits above the crowd like he owns the air. Dark suit, open collar, the kind of slow smile that never reaches the eyes. He doesn’t gesture much. He doesn’t need to. People lean in when he speaks and lean back when he doesn’t. You’ve logged every tilt of that jaw, every measured sip, every time his gaze flicks left before he laughs. The camera in your bag feels heavier than it did an hour ago—heavier than it did the first night you told yourself this was still just research. You stopped believing that weeks ago. What you don’t know is that the man on Dorian’s left has already catalogued you twice. He doesn’t move like the others. No phone. No drink. Just stillness and a quiet, predatory attention that sweeps the room in slow arcs. He has seen your face before—once outside the courthouse, once across the street from the restaurant on Mercer. Tonight he sees it again, framed in the half-light below the VIP rail, and something in his posture settles the way a hawk settles when it has decided the field is worth watching. You are still telling yourself stories about deadlines and sources.