The dress clung too tightly to Ayla's hips.
It wasn't hers—she borrowed it from a girl backstage at Club Eden. It shimmered under the hallway lights, black and sleek, with a slit that threatened her dignity and heels that dared her balance.
"You're not here to be comfortable," the manager had said with a plastic smile. "You're here to look like you belong."
Ayla didn't belong. She didn't know how to fake that yet.
⸻
The inside of Club Eden was unlike anything she'd seen.
Velvet walls. Mirrors like secrets. Lights so dim they painted everything gold and dangerous. Music oozed from the corners, thick and slow, like seduction with a pulse.
Women in glittering dresses moved like liquid. Men in suits didn't look at them—they examined them. Ayla straightened her shoulders and reminded herself this was just a job.
She wasn't here for pleasure. She was here to survive.
⸻
Her first shift began with a tray, a set of rules, and a warning:
Don't ask questions. Don't look too long. And whatever you do, stay off the third floor.
She didn't plan to test the last one.
The customers barely spoke to her. They gestured, snapped fingers, or nodded subtly. Power lived in silence here, and Ayla learned fast how to read it. But her eyes kept drifting—up.
A glass balcony overlooked the main floor.
She couldn't see anyone there. But she felt something watching.
The weight of unseen eyes.
⸻
During her break, she slipped outside the staff exit, heels in hand, the cool air kissing her sore feet.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Noah:
"Mom says don't forget her pills tomorrow. And I miss you. The cat won't stop crying."
Ayla exhaled a laugh, then wiped her eyes before the tears could fall.
She didn't belong in this world of shadows and silk.
But she'd do anything to keep hers from falling apart.