Chapter 6: Sable

The club had no name on the door.

It sat behind a florist's shop on a side street in Chelsea.

The florist's back room had a second door that opened only to a key.

"Sable," Dario said, as Luca parked the car. "Members only. I've belonged for eleven years."

"Does everyone in there know you?"

"Everyone knows who I am." He turned in the seat. "Tonight they learn who you are."

My stomach dropped and rose again.

He took a strip of black satin ribbon from his pocket.

He tied it around my throat in a plain bow.

It wasn't tight.

It was simply there, a line he had drawn on my skin.

"Whose are you?" he asked.

"Yours."

"Say it louder in there."

A woman in a grey silk dress took our coats and our phones at the inner door.

She locked them in a cabinet.

"Welcome back, Don Bertolini," she said, and she looked at me with open, friendly curiosity.

The room beyond was long and low and lit by amber lamps.

There were leather chairs along the walls and a bar of dark wood.

At the far end stood a low stage with a single armchair on it.

Perhaps forty people stood or sat in the dim light, in black and silk and leather.

Nobody was loud.

A man in a collar knelt beside a woman's chair with his head on her knee.

A woman in a mask was being tied to a frame by a man.

He spoke to her so quietly that I could only see her nod.

I should have been terrified.

I looked for the exits instead, and counted three, and found I was able to breathe.

"There's one rule you need," Dario said in my ear.

"Nobody touches you here but me. If anyone tries, tell me with your eyes, and I'll deal with it."

"And if I want to stop?"

"Then you say what?"

"Enough."

"Good." His hand settled on the back of my neck, warm, steady. "Come."

He walked me up onto the stage and sat in the armchair.

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