(Content Warning: contains themes of drugging and non-consensual contact. Handled with restraint.)
Beijing, winter night
The cheap heater coughed in the corner, barely breathing warmth into the small apartment. Zhao Mei's hands were raw from scrubbing dishes in cold water, her back aching from carrying laundry up six flights of stairs.
"Why are you so slow?" Madam Zhao's voice sliced through the hallway. "If you worked half as fast as you eat, maybe we'd have dinner on time!"
Zhao Mei bit her tongue. She had learned long ago that speaking back only meant skipped meals. She ducked her head and carried the tray into the living room where her stepmother and two siblings lounged in front of the television. The smell of roasted duck made her stomach twist.
She placed the tray down, her eyes catching the empty chair at the table her father's. He was out again. Or maybe in his study, pretending she didn't exist.
She was halfway to the kitchen when her phone buzzed.
Chen Rong:
Come to the International Grand Hotel tonight. Big business party. It'll be good for you.
She frowned. They hadn't spoken in months not since the night he'd shoved her against a wall, drunk and impatient, when she told him she wasn't ready to sleep with him. Five years of dating, and she'd thought he'd understood her boundaries. She'd been wrong.
Now he wanted her at a party?
"Who's that?" Madam Zhao asked sharply.
"No one," Zhao Mei murmured, slipping the phone into her pocket.
Hours later, she stood outside the glittering hotel, shivering in a short white dress she'd borrowed from Xiao lan at the café. She had no idea why she'd agreed to come. Maybe curiosity. Maybe defiance. Or maybe because Chen Rong had promised just talk, nothing more.
The lobby glittered with gold trim and crystal chandeliers. Waiters in black vests glided past with champagne trays. Somewhere upstairs, live music drifted from a ballroom.
She didn't notice the sharp, calculating eyes watching her from the mezzanine.
Elsewhere in the same hotel Zhang Wei
The penthouse elevator doors slid open and Zhang Wei stepped out, tall in a tailored charcoal suit, the very image of untouchable power. He was here against his will his mother's will, to be exact.
"Just for an hour," she had told him, her manicured fingers curling possessively over his arm. "Fang Hua will be there. I've arranged a suite. You'll... relax."
He'd snarled at the implication. He didn't do "arrangements."
He didn't notice the faint bitterness in the champagne she'd handed him before the party.
Back in the ballroom Zhao Mei
Chen Rong smiled too wide when he saw her. "You came."
He pressed a drink into her hand before she could answer. It smelled faintly of citrus and something heavier. She sipped cautiously, but the heat bloomed in her chest almost instantly.
The world blurred at the edges. His voice became a low hum. "Let's get some air," he said, guiding her toward the elevators.
She tried to protest, but her tongue felt heavy. Somewhere far away, she heard him murmuring to a hotel staff member a boy with wide eyes and a nervous nod. "Room 1703," Chen Rong instructed.
But Xu Fei, the bellboy, glanced at his notepad and misread the scrawl. 1708.
The elevator doors opened onto silence. Xu Fei half-carried Zhao Mei down the hall, swiped the keycard, and left her in the dimly lit suite. She sank onto the edge of the bed, her head spinning.
Moments later, the door opened again.
Zhang Wei stepped in, loosening his tie, irritation in every line of his body. "Fang Hua, I told you" He stopped dead.
A girl lay on his bed, her hair tumbling over one bare shoulder, a dazed, lost look in her eyes. Not Fang Hua.
The air shifted. The faint sweetness of champagne still clung to breath, the aphrodisiac burning low in his veins. He should have walked away. Should have called the front desk.
Instead, the door clicked shut behind him.
Her gaze lifted to his wide, confused, and unfocused. She whispered something he couldn't catch.
The distance between them dissolved. Heat, the scent of her perfume, the thrum in his blood everything blurred.
Fragmented impressions
A hand brushing hair from her face.
The sound of a gasp.
The world tilting sideways as they sank onto the bed.
Fingers trembling against skin.
A muffled protest that faded into silence.
And then, darkness.