Everyone has a frequency—a unique emotional signature that vibrates at a pitch only I can hear. Some are harmonious, others discordant. But in twenty-seven years, I've never encountered silence until him. The man at the bar radiates nothing but static, and it's driving me fucking insane.
I lean against the VIP section's velvet rope, fingernails digging into my palm. The club throbs around me, each beat pulsing through the soles of my stilettos and up my spine. To anyone else, it's just music. To me, it's a cacophony of desires, fears, lusts—emotions made audible, tangible. I can sort through them like radio stations, tuning in and out at will.
Except for him.
He sits alone, shoulders broad under a tailored jacket that probably costs more than most people make in a month. One finger traced the rim of his whiskey glass with deliberate precision. The movement should broadcast something—boredom, anticipation, impatience. But I get nothing. Just white noise that scratches against my senses.
"Emira." Kass appears at my side, her anxiety spiking in a shrill piccolo trill that makes me wince. "The Richardsons are asking for you in booth nine. Something about their anniversary package?"
I don't look at her. Can't look away from him. "Tell them I'll be there in ten."
"They're getting impatient. He's broadcasting aggression waves that are making other customers uncomfortable." She follows my gaze. "Who are you looking at?"
"Him. Bar. Three o'clock."
She squints. "The hot one with the 'don't fuck with me' vibe?"
That's one way to describe it. Though I'd call it more of a 'I will fuck with you and you'll thank me for it' energy. Still, his emotional landscape should be an open book to me. Everyone's is. That's my gift. My curse. My livelihood.
"I need to know who he is."
Kass's frequency shifts to a teasing melody. "Since when do you care about random customers? You've got people begging for your attention every night."
Because they know what I can do for them. What I can give them. The emotional resonance they crave, perfectly tuned to their frequencies. I'm a drug they can't get enough of. And it's so fucking easy.
"He's different." I don't elaborate. Kass wouldn't understand. She thinks my ability is limited to reading general vibes, not the precise emotional frequencies I actually detect. No one knows the full extent except me. And that's how it stays.
"Whatever you say, boss." Kass shrugs. "I'll handle the Richardsons. You go... investigate." She injects the word with enough innuendo to make me roll my eyes.
I slide through the crowd, each person's emotional frequency brushing against me—desire like velvet, jealousy like sandpaper, joy like warm honey. I filter them automatically, a skill honed since the accident that rewired my brain as a child. The doctors called it auditory synesthesia. They had no idea what I really experienced.
I stop a few feet from him, close enough to feel the static intensify. It's like standing too near a Tesla coil—the air charged with potential energy that raises the fine hairs on my arms.
"This seat taken?" I ask, not waiting for an answer before sliding onto the barstool beside him.
He doesn't startle. Doesn't even look up immediately. When he does, his eyes catch the overhead lights—amber in this moment, though they shift toward a darker hue as he assesses me. His gaze is methodical, moving from my face to my shoulders, noting the intricate scarification peeking above the neckline of my dress.
"It is now." His voice is controlled, precise. Each word measured before release.
I should hear the emotional undertone. The slight vibration that reveals desire, or annoyance, or curiosity. Every voice carries it—except his. Just flat, perfect static.
"I'm Emira Voss. I own this place."
"I know." Again, that careful control. The slightest curve of his lips that isn't quite a smile.
I wait for him to introduce himself. He doesn't. The static between us intensifies, almost painful in its emptiness. A void that pulls at me.
"You're either incredibly rude or deliberately mysterious," I say, signaling the bartender for another round. "Neither is particularly original."
"Darian Frost." He offers his name like it's a concession in a negotiation. "And I've never aimed for originality. Just efficacy."
"What's effective about sitting alone at my bar broadcasting—" I stop myself. Nearly revealed too much.
But his eyes sharpened. "Broadcasting what, exactly?"
Fuck. He caught that. Something tells me this man doesn't miss details. "Broadcasting 'leave me alone' vibes. Yet here I am, proving they're ineffective."
His finger continued its circuit around the whiskey glass rim. "Are they? Or did they work exactly as intended?"
My skin prickled. There's calculation here. Purpose. The static wasn't accidental—it's deliberate. Which means he knows about frequencies. About what I can do.
The bartender delivered our drinks. Darian's hand stilled as he reached for his glass, and for a millisecond—a single, fractured moment—the static broke. A jagged spike of something raw cut through. It hit me like a physical blow, making me gasp before the barrier slammed back into place.
"Something wrong?" he asked, his expression unchanged.
But I felt it. Anticipation. Sharp as a blade edge. Whatever Darian Frost wanted, it involved me. And he'd been waiting for this moment.
"Who are you?" I demanded, voice low, fingers gripping my glass hard enough to whiten my knuckles. "And don't bullshit me with your name again. You know what I mean."
"A potential client." He turned to face me fully. "With a proposition I believe will interest someone with your... particular talents."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He didn't react to my lie. Just reached inside his jacket and produced a business card. Simple, expensive cream stock with just his name and a phone number embossed in matte black.
"I think you do, Ms. Voss. You hear things others don't. Feel things others can't. And I need that ability for a job."
"I run a nightclub. That's it."
His mouth quirked. "A nightclub where wealthy clients pay exorbitant fees for private sessions with you. Sessions after which they report feeling 'seen' and 'understood' like never before. Where they develop almost addictive attachments to your presence."
The static waivered again—just enough for me to catch a trace of something predatory beneath his controlled exterior. Not threatening, exactly. More like a recognition between apex predators. He knew what I was because he's something similar. Different methodology, same result.
"What kind of job?" I found myself asking, though every instinct screamed to walk away.
"The kind that pays seven figures." He leaned closer, his scent cutting through the club's mixture of perfume and sweat. Clean, with an undertone of something medicinal. "The kind that would challenge even your extraordinary abilities."
His proximity intensified the static, a pressure building in my inner ear that should be painful but wasn't. It's almost... intriguing. Like a puzzle my brain couldn't stop trying to solve.
"And if I'm not interested?"
"You are." Absolute certainty in his tone. "Your entire body language shifted the moment you realized I was blocking you. You're fascinated. Possibly even desperate to break through."
His assessment hit too close. Heat flushed my cheeks—anger, not embarrassment. I didn't like being read when I couldn't read back.
"Fuck you," I said softly, the words at odds with my smile. "You don't know the first thing about me."
"I know enough." He slid the business card closer. "Call when curiosity wins over pride. I'll be waiting."
He stood, jacket falling perfectly back into place. Our fingers brushed as I took the card, and the static splintered again—longer this time. A burst of clarity that felt like fingers pressing into a bruise. Painful but somehow satisfying.
His face revealed nothing, but I caught it—pure, predatory interest pulsing through the break in his frequency. Then it was gone, sealed behind that wall of static.
"Goodnight, Emira." He said my name with such precision it felt like he was tasting each syllable. Testing how they felt in his mouth.
I watched him leave, the crowd unconsciously parting around him. The static frequency lingered even after he was gone, an afterimage on my senses.
The card felt unnaturally heavy between my fingers. I should throw it away. Return to the Richardsons and their anniversary celebration, to the clients whose emotions I could read and manipulate with practiced ease.
Instead, I slipped it into my bra, the edge pressing against my skin like a promise. Or a threat.
For the first time in years, I couldn't predict what happened next. The static had fucked with my carefully constructed world. And part of me—the most dangerous part—couldn't wait to hear more.