Poppy’s mood perked right up at Rohan’s anger toward me. Smiling, she ran a finger along the outline of her obviously newly reapplied lipstick.

Refusing to sit, I batted my lashes at him. “Punish away, baby.” I visibly shivered.

Drio unsuccessfully smothered a laugh.

Rohan murmured bullshit platitudes to Poppy, ushered her out the door, then slammed it shut.

Drio didn’t let it bother him. He sank onto the couch. “What’s the matter, Ro? True love getting you down?”

“Shut it, Desiderio.”

Oh joy! That was his real name? I clapped a hand over my snicker.

“Call me that and die,” Drio informed me.

I mouthed his full name at him before broaching the subject of the photos before Rohan could. “Admit it, they got my best side.”

“You think this is a joke?” Rohan turned the deadbolt on the door with an ominous click. “I just spent twenty minutes talking Mandelbaum out of putting your ass on the next plane home.”

I pushed aside a lipstick-stained wine glass. “You must be quite the multitasker.”

“I took the call in the bedroom.” His gaze turned flinty. “Don’t worry. I made it up to her.”

I dumped my bag on the table next to Rohan’s laptop with a hard thwack. “On what grounds did the good rabbi want me recalled?”

“Endangering the mission.”

“Because of the photos? Why just me? You’re all over the web, too.” I breathed through my mouth attempting to minimize the cancerous, pervasive reek of Poppy’s floral perfume.

“It was a given I’d be recognized. The Brotherhood was prepared for that.”

“First off, I haven’t been identified.” I pulled out my laptop and plug.

“Yet.”

“Second, the Brotherhood should have been prepared for me.”

“No one can prepare for you,” Drio quipped. Pulling out his phone, he pushed the coffee table farther back with his foot. All the better to take up more space. “Not even FEMA.”

“That’s a bullshit double standard.” I pried my fingers off my laptop and placed it gently on the table, wishing all manner of pointy dry anal probing on Mandelbutt. Stupid misogynist douchebag. “I’m hanging around a rock star and a famous actor. I’m not invisible.”

“You were supposed to be.” Rohan stalked toward me. “Groupie. Background. Furniture.”

Drio whistled through his teeth, not looking up from his phone.

Anger ballooned up inside me, my skin tightening from the strain of trying to contain it. “Furniture?! I’m not some half-assembled IKEA bookcase!”

“That’s your role.”

Electric sparks flew off my skin, singeing the carpet. “Is yours asshole?”

Rohan barked a laugh. “Yeah. You think Samson doesn’t know about my rep back in the day? Why would I behave other than how everyone expects if that would raise more questions and suspicions?”

I turned around in a circle. “I don’t see Samson here so what’s your excuse now?”

A vein twitched in Rohan’s temple. “Drio, a little back up?”

Drio glanced up from his phone. “Mom always told me not to eavesdrop on this part of the conversation.”

Rohan looked at his partner with murder in his eyes. “It’s only a matter of time before King learns your name,” he said.

“Big deal.” Now was not the time to voice any of my concerns about the possibility of discovery. Now was the time to play it like I had nothing to hide. Which honestly, was the only way to play it. With Rohan and Samson. “I was introduced to him as Lolita, for fuck’s sake. Not even Samson thinks I was born with that name. Should my real identity come out, I’ll say I’m reinventing myself.” I pulled a sad face. “It was just so boring being good little Jewish girl Nava Katz.” I fluttered my eyelashes.

Rohan wasn’t amused.

“Relax.” I flipped open my laptop and powered it up. “It’s all part and parcel of this quest of mine to be famous. This quest you yourself approved last night.”

“Much as I hate to agree with Nava,” Drio said, “she’s right. Samson isn’t going to think twice about the fact that she didn’t give him her real name. The photos mean squat and don’t endanger the mission. Hell, he probably orchestrated them. The only reason King would target her is if he discovers she’s Rasha.”

Holy shit. Drio defending me? He laughed at my floored expression. “I live to keep you off-balance.” He put his phone away. “Now can we get down to business?”

“Happy to.” I sat down in the chair, dumping my laptop plug on the ground. It landed next to two odd indentations in the carpet. Something had crushed the pile. Something like…

Poppy’s knees? “You forgot to tidy up after your toy.”

Rohan was supposed to look blank, not confirm my suspicions with his involuntary glance at that specific spot.

Helpless against the onslaught imagery of red lipstick on specific portions of his anatomy, I shot him a scathing look. “You fucker.”

“Not technically,” Drio said.

“Working smart, not hard,” Rohan fired back at me.

“Five bucks says hard too.” Drio smirked, then held up his hands at the death glare I leveled his way.

Rohan grabbed a bottle off the top of the suite’s small bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey. “Wasn’t that the game plan you set for this mission, Nava? Like I said, why behave other than how I’m expected to?”

The tiny rational slice left in my brain conceded his point. It wouldn’t surprise me if Poppy swallowed and spilled–the details right back to Samson. So Rohan had gotten a blow job. We weren’t exclusive. In fact, this was good. If I ever decided to sleep with him again, and knowing where his dick had been, it was debatable, he’d be in no position to criticize my “no kiss” stance. I forced the part of my brain screaming obscenities at him to return to my best Rasha self and get with the program.

“You’re absolutely right.” My phone buzzed with a text. “Oh. My date with Samson is a go.”

Rohan shot back his whiskey.

“More bonding?” Drio leered.

“More brilliance.” I double clicked my notes file on my desktop. “Okay, so here’s what I learned last night.”

“About time,” Rohan said. “Give us something to take the demon bastard down.”

“Alleged demon. This is all still conjecture.”

“Learned a couple law terms from Daddy, did we?” Rohan poured himself another drink. “You’re not running the show here, and I sure as shit don’t need you telling me how to think about my mission.”

I frowned at him. “I’m not doubting your gut. But you’re the one who said we don’t think of him as a demon until–”

I flinched as Rohan’s glass shattered against the far wall, streaking amber liquid on to the pristine carpet.

Drio jumped to his feet, his hand clamping down on my shoulder. “Go.”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get free. He stuffed my laptop, bag, and plug overflowing into my arms, and shoved me into the hallway. I protested the unfairness of the situation the entire time.

Door half-shut at his back, Drio spoke in a low voice so Rohan couldn’t hear. “You can share what you learned with us tomorrow.”

“But–”

He cast a worried glance back at the suite. “Tomorrow.”

* * *

I tore into my wardrobe choices, muttering about Rohan needing to get his head out of his ass. If I had been the one costing us precious time in learning something potentially valuable about Samson? Drio would have speed-dialed Mandelbutt to have me exterminated.

I looked at the mismatched red and black shoes that I’d paired with a blue dress. And pulling my own head out in three, two…

Samson hadn’t specified the dress code for tonight, but I needed to be the subject of more photos and provide further evidence of me as a taste-maker. Samson’s tastes at least. I calmed myself down and dressed with purpose.

A narrow band of black fabric wrapped around my neck like a thick choker. A wider band in the same material covered my breasts like a bandeau. The final part of the outfit consisted of a fitted pencil skirt, also black and the same stretchy material, that hit above the knee. Even my high heels were made of three black fabric bands, the narrowest over my toes, then another over the arch of my foot, with the last above my ankle.

All the training I’d been doing over the past few weeks were toning my body in a different way than when I’d been dancing. I posed in the mirror, arms stretched out, enjoying the sleek line of my limbs. The smooth curve of my silhouette. My legs went on for miles. With my hair down and glossy nude lips, I looked pretty damn exquisite.

According to Samson’s text, I had half an hour before he was swinging by to pick me up. I opted to wait in the lobby. Should anybody give me admiring looks, like say rock stars needing to grovel an apology, I’d be fine with that.

I got looks. Even a couple of drink offers. My heart sped up at the sight of a couple that I thought were Rohan and Lily, but it wasn’t them. I wondered if they were together, off doing couple things. My mind wandered down that road for a bit but when the woman in my imaginings started looking less like Lily and more like me, I shut that ridiculousness down.

“Mr. King is waiting for you in the car.” Showtime.

“Brickie!” I greeted the driver like a long lost friend. “How’s it hanging?”

Nothing. He was immune to my many charms. I followed him out to a black Escalade idling at the curb. Brickie opened the door for me and I slid in across from Samson, putting my back to the TV playing a rap video. He was on the phone and didn’t look up as I entered, so I blatantly checked him out. He wore a black knit cap along with a black cashmere sweater and dark pants and looked really good in all of it.

“I don’t give a shit, Forrest,” Samson said. “Work tomorrow’s schedule around my conference call or I don’t show.” My first taste of Samson as temperamental star.

Having never been in an Escalade before, I wanted to examine every customized inch of it, run my hands over the cream leather, see if the tiny lights in the ceiling twinkled, and snoop through all the compartments to reveal their secrets, but Lolita would have been in these a million times so I defaulted back to her general bored disinterest.

I glanced out the window, surprised to see the city speeding by. The ride was so smooth, I hadn’t noticed Brickie starting the engine and beginning our drive to dinner.

Samson’s laughter drew my attention. Still on the phone, he listened to whatever Forrest was saying, before cutting him off with a sharp, “Deal with it.” He hung up, his eyes running over my body.

I got the sense this was more cataloguing than appreciation but I pretended otherwise, preening for him. “Problems?” I motioned at the cell that he’d tossed on the leather seat.

“People forget the pecking order. They need reminding.”

“Peons.” He missed my sarcasm. “What’s your verdict with the photos? Did I intrigue?”

Samson looked at me shrewdly. “Not one for small talk?”

I propped my heels in his lap. “The faster we get business talk out of the way, the faster we get to other lingual pursuits.”

“Works for me.” Samson scrolled through a few pages on his phone, one hand resting on my shins. “For a first encounter with the general public, you didn’t do too badly.”

“More lovers than haters? Told you.”

“Don’t discount the haters,” he said. “We need them.”

“Why?” I pointed over my shoulder at the TV. “Can you turn that down?”

Samson raised the remote, muting the sound. “People hate to love and love to hate. Makes them want you even more.”

“You’re very wanted, Samson. So why retire from acting? Tired of the hatred and jealousy?”

“Nah. If I gave a shit about that, I wouldn’t be in this game. I just get bored easily. Diversity is everything. What about you?” He stroked up my leg. “Can you handle fame?”

I placed one foot on the floor, the other one propped on the edge of the seat between his knees. “Bring it. Those people don’t know me. They know the persona I let them see.”

“Lolita.”

“Exactly. Fans don’t care about who I actually am, only the person they project I am. I simply have to stay one step ahead of them and direct those projections to fall in line with my own goals.”

Samson leaned forward and opened a small panel on the side of the vehicle, revealing a small fridge. He pulled out a bottle of champagne and uncorked it, patting the seat next to him.

I slid across the Escalade.

Pouring us each a glass, he handed me mine, clinking his against it in cheers. “Here’s to women who understand what it takes to succeed in our build-up/tear-down culture.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly.” I sipped the bubbly vintage, the fizzy bubbles falling flat in comparison to my rush at having figured out what he was up to.

When I was a little kid celebrating Hanukkah, after lighting the candles and saying the prayers, my parents would make Ari and I sing what felt like the entire catalogue of Hanukkah songs before we were allowed to open our present for that night. It wasn’t enough to just sing either. We had to be engaged. Failure to do so, like fidgeting or casting longing glances at the gifts, would be construed as a reason to make us start the song again. Two guesses which twin caused the restarts.

Looking back, demons could learn a thing or two from my parents.

This flirting was fun but I felt like I was back at the Hanukkah table making sure I didn’t blow it, when all I really wanted was to get hold of Rohan and Drio and tell them my findings.

If we were correct about his affiliation with Louis XIV and Hitler–and I’d bet we were–then Samson was returning to drawing power from being the one behind the throne. You could get as much light from direct sun as you could from a mirror. Samson was a great mirror builder, building up other people to take the brunt of the fame for him. Slipping in on the sidelines and deriving his power by controlling the world through actors and idols, feeding off both the love and negativity they inspired on their way up or down in the public’s estimation.

This way, he didn’t make himself a target from either Rasha or other demons by taking center stage. Whether through his own orchestrations or a fickle public ready to turn on a dime, as soon as one client, one mirror, fell to another that he also backed, he still won, no downtime, no downside. Samson could do this forever, having clients in various stages of fame ascend or descend, and no matter where they were, people would hate to love and love to hate.

I picked up the champagne bottle, studying the label, which incidentally I knew nothing about. What I did know was that Samson would not be a guy to stint on the vintage. “More impressiveness, Mr. King.” I topped him up.

He looked at his full glass. “Should I fear for my virtue?”

“Please. Like I’m after anything that easy.”

Samson laughed.

“I’m going to get you drunk and find the gaudy chink in your impeccable image to prove how much you need me.” I tapped a finger against my lips. “Spiderman underwear.”

“I would wear those proudly,” he informed me. “You won’t find it.”

“Bet I will.”

He stretched an arm along the seat behind me. “Babe, I never met a bet I couldn’t win.”

I winked and held out my glass to be refilled. “Bet you’ve met your match in me.”

Under Samson’s appraising look, I leaned back, smug.

Samson held up his phone and snapped a photo of me.

“What’s that for?”

I leaned over his shoulder in time to see him upload it to his management company’s Twitter feed with the tweet, “Intriguing and cocky. Apparently, I’ve met my match.” He’d barely hit send before the likes started coming in.

Samson’s social media presence. That would play a huge role in all this as well. If he was a demon, he could very well feed off both his clients’ own emotions and those of anyone engaging via print and social media. Every new client he signed put another stone in his well-defended fortress that no one even realized he was building.

Interesting that Samson had offered Rohan, someone he couldn’t stand, the chance to be part of this. The chance to toy with him, building the former rock star up before orchestrating his downfall. Banking on Rohan doing the theme song as an indication of his desire to recapture his fame. Samson would have read that situation right, except for one thing.

He wasn’t the only one moving pieces on this chessboard.