Chapter 5: Dangerous Offer
Kai's shift felt like it was taking forever. Every minute felt like it was dragging on. He was so tired that the exhaustion weighed down on his body sinking deep into his bones. His wrists hurt from handling glasses, and he could smell the stinky mix of booze and perfume on his clothes. It was a smell he'd be stuck with all night cause he had no choice.
As he cleaned the marble counter, he noticed the club's background noise change. There wasn't a big difference, but it felt different. The room went quiet, like everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
Kai raised his head, a chill of cold anticipation running through him despite his weariness just to notice..
Adrian Veyra had arrived.
His presence commanded attention without trying. Every eye was drawn to him as he moved through the room. His black suit fit perfectly, making him look powerful and untouchable. His presence was like a magnet, quiet but undeniable. Even the loudest people fell silent as he passed by.
He didn't weave through the crowd, he flowed around it, like the other people didnt exist.
Kai felt a surge of tension, his hands tightening around the rag. He'd met Adrian before, and it was an experience he didn't want to repeat. He'd promised himself to keep a low profile, blend in with the crowd. But now, Adrian was here, and his eyes scanned the room like he owned the place. When their gazes met, Kai felt a jolt.
Adrian's eyes locked onto his, piercing and intense. He didn't need to stare back; Adrian wasn't looking away.
Kai's stomach flipped. A hot, prickly flush crept up his neck and across his cheekbones, but he forced himself to continue wiping the counter as if the presence of the club's most notorious patron was of no consequence. He focused on the damp, cool texture of the rag and the slick surface of the marble. But his heart hammered against his ribs with loud, irregular thuds with each slow step Adrian took closer.
And at last Adrian stopped at the bar, straight across from Kai.
"The Macallan 25, straight, in a glass."
Adrian's voice was smooth and commanding, leaving no room for hesitation. Kai felt a lump in his throat as he set the rag aside and retrieved the expensive bottle. His hands moved deliberately as he poured the whiskey, the liquid flowing like gold into the glass. The task felt like an eternity, with Adrian's eyes boring into him. Every movement felt scrutinized, every gesture under a microscope. The precision of the pour was almost a challenge.
When Kai finally slid the heavy glass across the counter just enough to be within Adrian's reach, not a millimeter further Adrian didn't reach for it immediately.
Instead, he leaned forward slightly, his posture impeccable, his eyes never breaking Kai's. The subtle intrusion into Kai's space was terrifyingly intimate.
"You have been avoiding me, Kai," Adrian said, It was not a question, but a claim made with unsettling certainty.
A shiver of fear traveled down the length of Kai's forearm. "I.. I've just been working, sir," Kai replied, his own voice reedier than he wanted. He tried to inject a note of bored disdain into his tone. "There's been a pretty hectic couple of nights here. I look after my post."
Adrian's lips curled slightly imperceptibly; it wasn't really a smile, but a suggestion of a smile, a sign that he had seen right through to the feeble defense. "You really think I won't notice when something in my field of vision is consciously trying to disappear?
Kai shifted uncomfortably, eyes lowered to the bar, but the knowledge of being closely watched remained, a heavy, bodily sensation. He didn't like the feeling of Adrian's gaze; it was too much, his tightly built defenses undone. Adrian wasn't gazing at the frazzled bartender; he was gazing at the failed painter, the overdue bills, the sleepless nights.
Adrian raised the glass to his lips, savoring the whiskey with a slow, deliberate sip. His movements were calculated, making Kai feel the tension build between them. "You interest me," Adrian said, setting the glass down. The ice clinked against the crystal, the sound echoing in the sudden silence. "You're not like the others. You don't try to impress or beg for attention. That's refreshing in a place where everyone is desperate for something."
Kai blinked, confused and deeply unsettled. The faint flare of defensiveness he felt was instantly extinguished by a strange heat in his chest, the dangerous warmth of being noticed in a way no one else in his life bothered to. "I'm just… doing my job," Kai insisted.
Adrian tilted his head, the movement slight, studying Kai as though testing the truth of his words against a complex internal metric.
"You don't belong here," Adrian said finally, his gaze sweeping over the gaudy gold décor. "This club. This noise. The pathetic avarice. You're not made for it. You're made for something quiet, demanding, and utterly consuming."
A jagged, protective flash burst up in Kai's chest, the last bastion of his independence. "And what do you think you could ever know where I'm from, or what I'm made of?" he shot back, lifting his chin fractionally.
For an instant, the tension between them hung, heavy and taut. Adrian's eyes softened, but only infinitesimally, to reveal a flickering, inscrutable depth.
"I could demonstrate," Adrian whispered, his tone dipping to a level that was close to conspiratorial, as though imparting a secret only the two of them were privy to.
The words dropped into Kai like an icy stone plunged into deep water. They weren't an offer; they were an intimate invitation to a realm Kai wasn't privy to.
Before Kai could build a logical, resistant thought, one of the bartenders called to him, bellowing for help with a complex cocktail order, a strident cry that dispelled the spell. Kai jumped back quickly, grabbing an empty tray just to give himself an excuse to move, his heart thudding, his mind reeling on the ring of Adrian's promise.
He moved the last hour like a ghost, working the floor, carrying trays and bussing tables, but his whole body was coiled tight as a spring. He did not make eye contact, but he had eyes for where
Adrian was standing, and felt the unseen cord that tied him. He even observed Adrian conduct a brief, low-grade discussion in one of the cozy booths with two men whose faces Kai previously recognized as financial news men who dominated the city's infrastructure.
"The Vance contract is shaky, Adrian," said one of the men, leaning in close to the other's ear, his voice barely above the din around them. "The package of assets is too convoluted, collateral too hazardous. Even for you."
Adrian merely stirred the liquid in his glass, his expression unreadable. "Risk is merely a factor which needs to be controlled, David. And I always possess that which belongs to me. The risk lies with those who believe they can profit from my vulnerability."
Kai, shoving past the booth, felt a shiver of sheer ice run down his spine. The unmitigated, glacial force of Adrian's offhand dismissal of "risk" and "vulnerability" made his own troubles seem petty and pathetic. Adrian Veyra wasn't just affluent; he was a force of nature acting in power and consequence. This was the man who had offered him private work.
Once the final remnants of the crowd thinned and the rest of the staff got to stacking up the chairs, Kai slipped back into the back to change, removing his thick, liquor-soaked sweater over his head. It was hopeless, trying to hide from the sun behind a paper-thin screen.
But when he stepped out of the staff door into the freshness of the night air, Adrian was there waiting for him.
Standing with his hip casually braced against the hood of a sleek, obsidian black car parked at the curb, Adrian was utterly removed from the pretence of the club world, as if he were a sculpture carved out of the darkness itself. He stretched stiffly as Kai came.
Kai tensed at once. His first impulse, was to whirl and run back into the club, but Adrian's voice sliced through the quiet.
"Walk with me."
Kai stalled, the refusal on his lips. "I don't think so."
"Just a walk.. " Adrian interrupted sharply ".. unless you're afraid, Kai. Afraid that the man who sees your struggle will offer you a way out."
Kai flinched, his independently proud sensibility pricked at once. "I'm not afraid," he growled out.
Adrian's mouth twitched in a shadow of actual amusement, sensing the easy manipulation. "Good. Then walk."
Against all instinct for caution, Kai stepped out, falling into rhythm step behind Adrian. The city lights flickered dully in the black sky, the streets cleaner and more subdued late at night. The cadence of their footsteps on the pavement was the only sound other than the distant thrum of the city. They walked silently for a good distance, Adrian's pace measured, unaccustomed, as if he had no other destination to be at the rest of the evening.
"You study classical art and theory," Adrian said at last, not five words, but a gentle, destroying truth. "You work in oils, but your most recent painting demonstrates an infuriating lack of space to stretch out your canvases the way they need to be stretched. You need light, and you have not had it."
Kai stared at him, his heart skipping once again. This level of intrusion was intrusive, terrifying, and yet, shockingly precise. "How do you know all that?"
Adrian's eyes glanced over to him, then back out before him, watching the empty street. "I take it on myself to know things, Kai. The things that matter. Your struggle matters."
Kai's chest tightened, the knot of defensiveness hardening. "My struggle is my own. It pays for my life."
"Is it worth your life," said Adrian, without passing judgment, simply stating an empirical truth. "You're worth more than pouring drinks to men who can't even see the fatigue in your palms. You're wasting the prime years of your gift pouring drinks to men who only see a service professional and not a dreamer."
Kai stopped dead in his tracks. The words were a painful note struck on the chord of thoughts he pushed aside each time his hand went seeking a cocktail shaker instead of a paintbrush. "And you do? You see me?"
Adrian also stopped dead in his tracks, turning to him now, his face expressionless in the dim, golden glow of a nearby streetlight. He closed the distance between them by one deliberate step, his presence hanging over Kai's breath.
"Yes," Adrian said quietly, resolutely. "I do. I see the spark of ambition that burns in your eyes, one which you constantly strive to extinguish with pride. I see how your hands move when you're not thinking about money. I see room for a conflagration this club is quietly choking under in cheap beer and late nights."
The honesty in his voice unsettled Kai more than any lie ever could. It was a truth so penetrating that it burned like a betrayal of his own secretive nature.
"I could give you the room that you need," Adrian continued, his low voice hypnotic. "Your rent. Your fees. You'd have boundless time to paint. You'd never have to exhaust yourself here, wearing your ambition down to meet the necessities of life."
Kai's breath caught, fast and shallow. The temptation was pain. It was all he ever desired, outstretched in Adrian's serene, unobtainable hands. "Why?" Kai gasped, his words trembling slightly. "What do you want in return? A model? An assistant? Name your price, Adrian, because nothing you possess is ever free."
Adrian's gaze pierced deeper, holding Kai, siphoning away the last of his resistance. His voice was a promise, a dictum, and an admission all at once.
"You already know the answer, Kai," Adrian breathed. "I need your attention. I need your hours. I need your honesty that no one else can get from you. I need to see what that spark in your eyes can actually create when it's finally unbound. I need you, whole in my crosshairs. I need you to know when you're looking for an anchor, you will find me."
Heat radiated upon Kai's face, a mad mix of raw anger, locked terror, and a lethal, unstoppable burst of something he couldn't identify as a primal, exhilarating curiosity.
"I'm not for sale, Adrian," Kai panted, his voice cracking beneath the strain of his disintegrating barriers. "You don't buy people, you buy loyalty. And I owe you nothing."
Adrian's jaw worked, a muscle tensing beneath his perfect skin, but he did not look away. He did not even complain.
"This has nothing to do with money, Kai," Adrian said to him, his voice even with finality. "This is about choice. I'm offering you a lifeline. I'm offering you a way out of drowning. The money."
Adrian stepped back a last, creating space between him and Kai physically, but without leaving any room for emotional withdrawal.
"Think again," he commanded. "Look at the card. Look at what your life is becoming here. I won't be back tomorrow. The deadline is when you lose the ability to make a call. Then you can keep on struggling, and I'll just find someone who is aware of the value of a new beginning."
With that, Adrian wheeled around, a quick shift of the body, and strode back towards his car. The door slammed shut with a ring of profound finality, the motor humming to life, smooth and deep, before the car pulled away, lost into the dark street.
Kai stood transfixed under the sadistic, thrumming streetlamp, the chill of the night air against his burned flesh, but his mind was an oil. His reasoning tangled itself in confusion: fear, temptation, pride, and the dangerous, seductive power of Adrian's absolute conviction.
He knew one thing at least: once Adrian Veyra had his mind set on something, he was not going to release it until he possessed it. And Kai didn't know if he wanted to run or fall finally.
To Be Continued