Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The lounge was dimly lit in rich tones of burgundy and gold, the hum of low jazz vibrating through crystal glasses and velvet covered booths. Smoke curled lazily in the air, caught in beams of spotlight that sliced through the room. Beneath the glitz and glamour, tenson pulsed like a second heartbeat. This wasn’t just a place for music and martinis, it was the playground of crime lords, money launderers and the shadows they danced with.
In the back of the lounge, a semicircle booth wrapped around the VIP section like a velvet throne. That’s where he sat, the man once known as Doctor Spencer Reid. Now? To the underworld, he was “Valen.” Cold, precise and brilliant. His once soft edges had hardened, hair slicked back, jaw sharper with the weight of the world he carried, dark eyes unreadable behind wire framed glasses. The expensive tailored suit didn’t mask the intellect in his gaze. If anything, it enhanced it, he looked like someone who could dismantle your soul with a sentence and then bury your secrets with a signature.
To his right sat lieutenants. To his left power players. But directly across the room, across the flickering candle light and haze of cigar smoke, lounged Draven Demorte, all arrogance and Italian silk, the serpent of the ring that Spencer had been circling for months. Their rivalry was legendary, whispered about in hallways and backroom deals, hinted at with every narrowed glance.
Spencer swirled the amber liquid in his glass without drinking, sharp eyes scanning the lounge. He hadn’t been tipped off to any federal presence tonight, but something in the air felt off, a quiet hum just out of tune. His instincts, sharpened by the years in the BAU and refined by his time in this criminal empire, told him something was about to shift.
A stagehand whispered into the band leader’s ear. There was a murmur of excitement as the room grew more hushed, attention shifting to the curtain draped stage. A new act. A new singer. A new mystery.
Spencer’s gaze ticked towards the stage, his fingers halting mid-glide across the rim of his glass as the band began to play.
Backstage, the final notes of a piano intro began to melt into rhythm. The velvet curtains shimmered faintly as a figure stood just beyond the spotlight’s edge, concealed, yet poised. The room unaware of the storm she was about to bring with nothing but her voice and a presence that could quiet kings. Spencer didn’t know yet, none of them did, but the night was about to change when she took the stage.
Ruby checked herself in the mirror on the side of the stage. Her hair was pinned up in a vintage updo like a burlesque dancer. A few of her red curls slipped down around her face as her ears held a set of glittering diamonds as well as her throat. She wore a black silk dress that clung to her curves dangerously and had an asymmetrical skirt, showing off her right leg up to her thigh as the other side touched her knee. Her lips a rose red that made her freckles pop and her blue eyes sparkle.
As the band began to play the song ‘Guy What Takes His Time’ from the movie Burlesque her black heels clicked to the stage where a microphone stood on a tall slender stand. Seductively she grabbed the microphone and began to sing the sultry and risqué number as she scanned the crowd. Not only did she catch Spencer’s eye but she also caught the attention of Draven who smirked and raised his glass to the red haired vixen.
The room stilled like prey sensing a predator.
Rose Fontaine emerged onto the stage like sin draped in silk, her black dress painting temptation across every step. The click of her heels echoed through the haze of cigar smoke and whispered speculation, turning heads like a spell had been cast. Her voice poured into the room with the smooth heat of aged bourbon.
“A guy… who takes his time…” The words slid over velvet air, each note deliberate, languid, a challenge, a promise and a trap. Gasps and murmurs rippled from the bar to the back booths. Every set of eyes were on her, some in awe, others in hunger, but two sets watched for different reasons entirely.
Spencer froze mid-drink as his dark eyes locked onto the source of the voice. It couldn’t be. The voice, the mannerisms, that fire wrapped in a woman’s skin. His eyes snapped into focus as he recognized her, not by her dress or by name, but by the soul behind her eyes. Ruby. But it wasn’t Ruby. Not right now. It was Rose Fontaine and the act was flawless. His fingers tightened around the glass, the only outward sign of the firestorm behind his eyes.
Draven, meanwhile, leaned forward with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He raised his glass in amusement and slow-growing desire, eyes undressing her with practiced arrogance. His gaze lingered on the slit of her dress, then rose back to her eyes with a predatory grin.
“Now who the hell is that?” Draven murmured under his breath, low enough for only his closest man to hear.
Spencer’s jaw flexed imperceptibly. He knew what kind of man Draven was and what kind of danger Ruby had just stepped into. But he couldn’t break cover, not yet. Not with a dozen eyes on him and Demorte watching his every breath. He forced a slow sip of his drink, hiding the twitch in his jaw, his fingers brushing against the edge of the table coded in Morse, hoping she might remember the signal. Three short, two long, three short. “I see you.” But would she notice it across the room?
The music continued, sultry and intoxicating, the perfect distraction and the perfect storm. And Spencer Reid, head of the most dangerous mafia ring on the East Coast, still very much in love, sat stone still, praying she was ready for what came next.
As the song ended Ruby looked back to the band. She then turned back to the mic in a sultry seductive tone as she sang, “The French are glad to die for love…” With a smile as she flourished her arms wide for a moment as the band began to pick up.
The song picked up fast as the band started ‘Sparkling Diamonds.’
A wickedly sweet smile crossed her red lips as she sang, “A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” She pulled the cordless microphone from the stand and slipped to the edge of the stage, getting into the music. She then hopped off the stage to dance around the tables, twirling and dancing as she sang to the high energy song as if she had done this all her life. Spinning around one of the tables, she stopped at Draven’s table with a smile as she leaned over the table while singing, “Cause we are living in a material world and I am a material…” Dramatically she pulled back from the table as she finished the lyric, “girl.”
Turning on her heel she flourished towards the table where Spencer was sitting with a woman on his right. Her eyes met Spencer's as she got closer, “Come and get me boys.” She grinned while singing and turned to make her way back to the stage. “Blackstar, Roscoe, talk to me Valen Moreau, tell me all about it!” She made direct eye contact with Spencer as her voice rang out, calling out his alias name.
The BAU had given her his alias to know who he was. It was part of her ruse, but to the patrons of the club it was part of the performance. When she reached the stage two men reached out and took her arms and helped her back up on stage, one of them her personal bodyguard.
The room was no longer breathing, it was gasping.
From the first lyric of the song, Ruby had become a firestorm in stilettos, commanding the room with the practiced elegance of someone born to rule the stage. Laughter, awe and a low thrum of tension rippled through the velvet draped lounge as she danced between tables like the glittering ghost of a dream. Champagne nearly spilled, cigarettes fell from parted lips. Every eye watched her, but none with more intensity than the two men seated on opposite sides of the empire’s chessboard.
Draven’s brow lifted in pleasant surprise as she stopped at his table. He leaned back in his chair with a slow, savoring smile, one ring laden hand lifting to gesture at her playfully. His voice was low, murmured towards his lieutenant with a smirk that reed of conquest. “Well now… I think I’m in love.”
But Spencer didn’t move. Not even when Ruby spun toward his side of the room. The woman seated to his right, a cartel heiress with a taste for blood and emeralds, giggled drunkenly swaying to the music, oblivious to the tension bleeding off him.
Then she said it. His alias fell from her lips like the drop of a match into gasoline. The temperature of the room changed, but only for Spencer. The woman at his side laughed again, thinking it was part of the act, while others merely nodded in approval, impressed by the theatrics.
Spencer knew the team had sent someone. He just hadn’t realized they’d sent her. Not Ruby, not the woman he hadn’t dared contact in months for her safety, for the mission, for everything he couldn’t bear to risk. And now she was here, wearing danger like a second skin, singing his name in front of the most dangerous people in the city. His hand once again tapped against the table the same code the same message, urgently this time.
The bouncer and her bodyguard lifted her back onto the stage with a choreographed sweep and the final crescendo of the song shimmered through the lounge like starlight before the blackout.
Applause erupted, enthusiastic and unaware of the dangers.
Draven leaned to his feet, grinning like a wolf in a silk tie, his voice loud enough to cut through the clapping. “Buy the lady a drink. On me.” He snapped his fingers and a waiter peeled off towards the stage. Spencer’s fingers tensed around his glass once more, but he couldn’t move, not yet. Not without breaking everything he’d built.
Instead he whispered something into the ear of the woman beside him, who looked mildly affronted as she stood and walked away, freeing the space to his right.
If Ruby saw the signal, she’d know. The seat? It was hers. And everything that came next would change the game entirely.