Chapter 318: Tonight

Lucas turned toward her with a serious face.

Gracie was already smiling.

The difference between them sat in the air like a held breath. He had been deep in files and angles all evening, mind locked on damage, leverage, and the slow work of cutting into Durnik from a distance. She looked like someone who had been waiting for the right moment to drop a match.

"What do you think can bring him down?" he asked.

She did not rush the answer. She let the question hang long enough for him to feel it. Not a dramatic pause for show. A real one. The kind that made the room quieter than it had been a second before.

"Tonight," she said slowly, "TikTok is hosting a private dinner. Special guests. Selected names. Invitation only."

Lucas’s eyes sharpened.

That one word already changed the shape of the evening.

"I already have mine," Gracie continued. "I’m not going. So I can give it to you."

The living room shifted around the offer. Mia, Daisy, and Debbie had been nearby enough to hear the edge of it, but none of them interrupted. Gracie walked over to the chair where she had left her handbag before going upstairs with the girls. She opened it without hurry, reached inside, and brought out a small card.

Black and gold.

Clean edges.

Expensive stock.

The TikTok mark sat on it like a seal that was never meant for ordinary hands. She held it out to him.

"The Monarch Hotel," she said. "Westhaven."

Lucas took the card.

For a second he only looked at the location. A short smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. So the old bastard had learned at least one lesson after all. He was avoiding anything with Lucas’s name near it, circling wide around the Bellagio and any ground he did not fully control. Smart, in a small way. Too small to save him.

Then Gracie delivered the rest.

"It starts tonight."

Lucas’s head lifted.

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

"Fuck."

He was on his feet in the same breath.

The calm planning face from a moment earlier vanished into pure movement. He pushed away from the laptop, invitation still in hand, already turning toward the stairs. There was no long speech. No careful breakdown of timing. The window was too narrow for any of that.

"I need to get ready."

He said it while moving, not after. His steps hit the staircase hard, taking them two at a time, the sudden urgency breaking the quieter rhythm the house had been holding all evening.

Gracie stayed where she was.

She watched him disappear upstairs, and the smile on her face deepened with quiet satisfaction. She had not handed him a favor. She had handed him access. A door straight into a room Durnik thought was protected by invitation lists, social distance, and the comfort of familiar power.

Behind her, the three girls exchanged a look, but none of them spoke yet.

---

Across the city, the meeting had ended.

Or, more accurately, it had ended on him.

Durnik stood alone in the office long after the last investor tile vanished from his laptop screen. His phone was still in his hand. The screenshots from Gracie’s stream were still open. Three unknown faces. Gracie in the middle of them, smiling like the day belonged to her. He zoomed in on one woman, then the next, as if sharper focus could force a name out of a stranger.

It did not.

The boardroom silence around him felt heavier than shouting. He had lost the call in real time, in front of the exact people he needed to look controlled for, and all because a live stream on his phone had been louder than his own discipline.

He finally turned, picked up the laptop, and carried it with him toward the bedroom.

Rebecca was already there.

She had cleaned herself up completely since earlier. No robe. No exposed skin. Fresh clothes. Phone in her hands, thumbs moving with the same easy boredom she always wore when she wanted the house to feel normal again. She did not look up at first.

Durnik stopped in the doorway.

"Get ready," he said. "We’re leaving soon."

That was when it hit her.

The banquet.

Her head lifted at once. "Is it today?"

Durnik did not answer.

He did not need to. One look at his face was enough. Tight jaw. Cold eyes. The expression of a man already calculating how much performance the night would demand from him. Rebecca understood immediately. She stood up with her phone still in hand and headed for the walk-in closet to dress properly.

Durnik watched her go.

For a moment the old irritation rose in his chest, sharp and familiar. This was the woman he had married. The same woman who could spend an afternoon chasing her own pleasure, then cover it all up and walk into a public event on his arm like the house behind them was stable. He regretted the marriage more often than he said out loud. The regret had hardened over time into something duller than anger. A bad choice. A useful image. A public arrangement that still photographed well enough when they stood side by side and smiled on cue.

They only performed the marriage outside.

Inside, it had already become separate things, separate appetites, and long stretches of silence. People in their circle had started suspecting the truth. Durnik gave them enough reason. Too many late nights. Too many familiar names around him. Too little care about how obvious it looked. The only reason nobody said it plainly was because money still made people careful with their mouths.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.

Outside, they would arrive together.

Smile together.

Pretend together.

Inside, he just needed her dressed and ready so the act could start on time.

--- 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Back at the mansion, Lucas came downstairs dressed in a dark suit that made the whole room notice him before he said a word.

The cut was clean. The shirt sharp beneath it. He looked like he had stepped from planning into execution with no wasted motion between the two. The invitation sat tucked away now, but the urgency had not left his face completely. He was ready to move.

The girls were in the sitting room when he appeared.

They saw him and rose at once.

"Wait," Mia said, already closing the distance.

Daisy reached him next. Debbie came in from the side. In a second the three of them were on him like he had walked into a final inspection instead of an exit. Mia fixed his collar with both hands, smoothing it flat. Daisy brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder and tugged the front of his jacket into cleaner lines. Debbie stepped in close enough to adjust his cuff, eyes narrowed in concentration like one wrong fold would personally offend her.

"You were about to walk out like this?" Mia muttered.

"I walked out fine," Lucas said.

"You walked out incomplete," Daisy corrected.

Debbie only hummed in agreement and gave the jacket one last pull.

The whole thing lasted less than a minute, but they treated it with total seriousness, three pairs of hands refining a man who had already been ready before he reached the bottom of the stairs. From the side, Gracie sat watching in silence. She did not stand. She did not join. She only followed the scene with her eyes, reading the easy intimacy in it without stepping into the circle.

When they finally finished, Lucas looked at the three of them.

He kissed Mia first, short and familiar.

Then Daisy.

Then Debbie.

Each one received the same brief contact, enough to acknowledge them without slowing the night down. Gracie remained where she was, outside that small ritual, still watching.

Lucas turned for the door.

"I’ll be back," he said.

Then he was gone, already moving toward the car, suit clean, invitation secured, the night ahead suddenly wide open.