The problem with power is it dulls your senses.
You stop checking corners. You stop asking questions. You start thinking nothing can surprise you—until something does.
Leon leaned against the marble bar on the second floor of Club Eden, drink untouched, his eyes sweeping the room like a hawk circling prey. Below him, laughter curled like smoke, empty and rehearsed. The music pulsed, but his thoughts were too loud.
Something had changed.
He didn't know what yet.
⸻
"You're distracted," Nico said, sliding into the seat beside him. "That's rare."
Leon didn't answer. His gaze was locked on the staff—new girls, old regulars, and one unfamiliar figure moving through the crowd with too much hesitation to be a veteran.
She didn't look like the others. Her movements weren't trained. Her eyes weren't dead.
Not his business.
Still… she didn't belong here.
⸻
"You think she's the leak?" Nico asked.
Leon didn't respond. He wasn't even sure she was part of the problem. But in his world, a gut feeling was as close to truth as anything else.
"Find out who hired her," he said finally. "I want names by morning."
Nico raised a brow. "You don't usually care about the pretty ones."
"I don't," Leon snapped. "That's why I want answers. Before she becomes a problem."
⸻
Later that night, long after the club had thinned out, Leon walked the halls alone. He preferred solitude. No footsteps but his own. No voices in his ear.
But tonight, the silence felt… off.
Like the moment before a match is struck. Like the scent of smoke before you see the flame.
He stopped outside the breakroom door—empty, but still warm with recent presence. He glanced once inside. A tray sat abandoned. A phone charger unplugged.
Something whispered through him then, quiet but unshakable.
You've seen storms before, Leon. But this one will burn.