She tapped it open with mild irritation, expecting so irrelevant promotional junk, until her eyes caught the subject line:
"mbership Termination — Effective Imdiately."
Her brows knitted. Termination? How? Why?
This could only be a mistake. It must have been for soone else and was accidentally sent to her...
She clicked it open, and her stomach dropped as she read:
Dear Mrs. Eleanor Wales Blackwood,
As of today, your VIP mbership at Sapphire Bistro has been dissolved until further notice.
We reserve the right to withdraw privileges from mbers whose conduct, associations, or guest behavior violate the standards of exclusivity and discretion upheld by our establishnt.
This decision was made in accordance with Clause 3.1(a) and Clause 5.4(c) of our mbership agreent.
You will no longer have access to:
• Priority Reservations
• Private Dining Rooms
• Chef’s Select Previews
• Wine Vault Access
• Event Invitations
We thank you for your past patronage and advise that all inquiries be directed to our legal team, should you seek clarification.
Warm regards,
Sapphire Bistro VIP Managent
"..."
Mrs. Eleanor stared at the screen, her mouth hanging slightly open.
Violate the standards of exclusivity and discretion?
Her cheeks flushed hot with sha, then cold with fury.
Then–
She scread.
She scread so loudly that her driver and bodyguard sitting at the front jolted in their seats. The car veered slightly to the left before the driver corrected it with a curse under his breath.
"Ma’am?!" the bodyguard asked, half-turning in his seat with his hand already reaching for the holster beneath his blazer.
"Turn the damn car around!" Eleanor shrieked, her voice rasping with rage. "Take to Sapphire Bistro. Now!"
The driver hesitated. "Ma’am, you said you have an important guest waiting at your—"
"Did I stutter?" she snapped, her voice slicing through the air like a whip. "Turn the damn car around!"
The bodyguard exchanged a worried glance with the driver but gave a small nod. The car swerved into a sharp U-turn, tires screeching on the road.
Eleanor gripped her phone so hard the screen almost cracked.
She was one of the Big Five – a circle of won, so exclusive that even whispers of its mbers could silence boardrooms and turn the city.
Just like Paradise served as ho for the crè de la crè, Sapphire Bistro was more than just a restaurant. It was a throne room. A symbol. A place where legacies were maintained, alliances ford, and reputations etched in gold.
And now, hers had been burned. Dissolved. Suspended.
If this news got out, the wives she once looked down on, who begged her on their knees to get them a mbership, believing she had the power to do almost anything, would see her as an empty vessel.
They would mock her and see that she actually had no power, but was leeching into her daughter-in-law.
Eleanor clenched her jaw.
No one would dare say it to her face, of course. Not yet. But they didn’t need to. In their world, silence spoke loudest and she could already hear it roaring.
Her chest rose and fell with short, shallow breaths, each one feeding the fire surging through her.
She opened her contact and dialed Anita’s number, hoping to tell her what was going on, but after rembering what that stupid girl, Linda, did earlier to provoke Anita, she canceled the call and dialed her son instead.
He’d better resolve matters with Anita as soon as possible, otherwise...
...
Killian had just finished his shift for the day, working as a concierge at a VIP Resort, and had just plugged his phone into the charger when it buzzed with a ssage.
He almost ignored it, his body aching and his mind foggy from dealing with entitled mbers. But the sender’s na caught his attention.
Roo, his person, whom he put in charge of giving him reports daily on Anita’s movents, had just ssaged him again.
*This morning, she went to the hospital, spent an hour and fifteen minutes, then stopped at Sapphire Bistro restaurant for thirty minutes. She’s heading to the mall now.*
"Okay," he typed, his fingers hesitating for a mont before hitting send.
Killian leaned back in his chair, rubbing the tension from his neck. The day’s exhaustion threatened to pull him under, but that was the trouble that ca with being a part-ti concierge, who had to do other jobs too...actual job.
He plugged his phone in and went into the bathroom for a quick shower, hoping the warm water would wash away so of the stress and fatigue. As the water ran over him, his mind kept drifting back to Anita.
After she pushed him away last night, he’d pulled up the report he asked his people to gather, from that first day they ran into each other at the hotel.
He wasn’t surprised that she’d turned out to be a ruthless woman who shook her enemies to the bone. She’d always been dominant from childhood. After all, she was a White. They were known for their vicious, cunning, and unrelenting drive to rule, to dominate, to conquer.
From the reports his people could gather, Anita had turned out to be exactly like her father and if pushed over the edge, she could beco worse.
But at least, she’d not taken a life, which was a relief. However, her visit to Echelon Club, a place he was sent here –to Greenville– to monitor discreetly, set off a series of alarms in his mind.
Echelon wasn’t just any private club – it was a den for vultures and monsters. Killian knew better than to underestimate the significance of Anita stepping inside those walls, especially at this point in her tangled revenge, or was that what she was after?
He couldn’t tell.
Back in the days, he knew her to be vengeful. And she still was. But he couldn’t wrap his head around why she couldn’t just deal with her husband once and for all and move on, instead... he sighed. He didn’t even know what she was doing, so why judge?
He stepped out of the shower, quickly towel-drying himself as walked into the room, to a new ssage buzzing.
On the screen, it wasn’t a ssage from Roo. No, work called, and it was about Lord Maverick Ravenswood.
The leader of the monster in this city. The sa one he was sent to bring down by any ans possible.
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