Aira Valencia Alvarez never asked for this life. She only wanted to study, laugh with her siblings, and dream like every other girl her age. But fate was cruel. The day her mother collapsed and got confined to the hospital with a brain tumor, everything changed. With her father long gone, Aira carried the world on her shoulders-three jobs, sleepless nights, and the heavy duty of keeping her family alive. School became a memory, a childhood luxury she could no longer afford.
Her life was ordinary... until the night she unknowingly caught her eyes.
Lilith evelynn Montclair-an heiress wrapped in silk and secrets, a woman everyone adored. She was elegance, perfection, the kind of goddess people bowed their heads to. Soft-spoken, angelic, untouchable. The world saw a woman who could never hurt even an insect. But at the masquerade party, where everyone sparkled in masks and diamonds, Lilith's gaze wandered-and lingered.
It wasn't the gowns, the jewels, or the laughter that held her attention. It was a single waitress in a plain mask, moving through the crowd with tired hands and quiet strength. Lilith didn't know her name. She didn't even see her face. But there was something in her presence, something in the way her eyes carried exhaustion yet refused to break, that stirred a strange curiosity within the flawless heiress.
For Aira, it was just another night of work. For Lilith... it was the beginning of questions she couldn't ignore.
The club wasn't where she imagined herself working, but it was the only place that would take her. The air was thick with smoke, and the neon lights did little to chase away the darkness inside. People came and went-some looking for trouble, others caught in things they shouldn't have been. She'd seen men dragged into the back rooms, beaten up for not paying in time or failing to do their part.
And then there was her-the club owner. Cold, calculated, and feared by everyone who walked through the doors. She ran this place with a tight grip, and she didn't tolerate mistakes. No one dared to cross her, not without consequences. And yet, every time their eyes met, something shifted, an unsettling pull that she couldn't quite explain.
She didn't know what it meant, or why it unsettled her so much. But one thing was certain: the longer she stayed here, the more complicated everything would become...