Chapter Text
Money was supposed to make life dazzling. Every wish could be granted, every possibility always at your fingertip. Every door open. Every desire satisfied.
The Vidal name was old money, the sort of wealth that had carved its way into a city with glass towers and steel promises. Rio Vidal had been born at the top, her world built on mahogany boardrooms and gilt-edged portfolios before she was old enough to understand what any of that meant. She'd been raised in penthouses where the windows stretched higher than the ceilings of most houses, where the hush of marble floors carried the footsteps of nannies and tutors instead of those of family. Amidst all, power had always been the air she breathed; wealth, the water she swam in.
But wealth and power, like anything in excess, dulled to gray eventually. They were things she had inherited, refined, doubled, weaponized, used to get whatever she wanted or needed, but they carried no heat anymore. She lived inside of them the way a snake lives inside its own skin. Restless, shedding, always waiting for the next molt to bring something sharper, something new. Something exciting. Just for once.
Truth be told, Rio Vidal was bored. Bored of parties where everyone bowed and scraped, of the hollow laughter of men who wanted her investments, of women who wanted her name on their tongues like it was currency. Bored of being envied, feared, desired, but never once, surprised. Most things bored her these days. The days just endless loops of deals, acquisitions, galas, and champagne that tasted like dust rather than luxury after the fifth glass of the night. And at the end of every evening, she went home to her empty mansion, former residence of her parents and their parents and so on, and its 52 rooms she knew every corner of. Many unused for years, stood waiting like mausoleums, collecting dust no one dared disturb, or cared to sweep.
The day a simple piece of paper was going to turn it all upside down, Rio sat in her penthouse office high above the city, legs stretched out along the leather chaise by the windowed wall. Below her, the New York skyline glittered with neon, streetlamps bleeding into the fog of early autumn, the streets busy with people on their way home, cars rushing like veins pumping red through the night. Rio sighed as she pushed herself upright, setting the glass she’d been holding, ice cubes melted, watering down the rest of some amber whiskey, on the table next to her with a quiet sigh. The city always looked more interesting from this distance than it ever felt up close.
The door opened with a polite knock that was ignored until it closed again and Rio’s gaze followed the deliberate movements of the woman that had just stepped inside. “Miss Vidal” her assistant, Alice, spoke up in her careful, clipped tone. She had been with her long enough to know better than to ask about her wellbeing or how business had gone today. Nothing was less interesting to Rio than useless small talk. Instead, she approached with a folder in hand, impeccably dressed in a suit that she’d bought with her first paycheck. Rio had made sure she didn’t have to pay for a thing herself ever again shortly after.
“You look serious” Rio drawled, pausing mid-movement. “Is the world ending? Finally?” her head cocked as she studied Alice, gaze catching at the folder in the woman’s hand. More business, surely. How utterly disappointing.
“Make it good” Rio murmured, immediately disinterested. “Or make it brief.”
“Not quite the world’s end. But I may have found, let’s say, a solution to your recent complaints.” Alice ignored the familiar sarcasm as she stepped closer.
Rio raised an eyebrow at that, curiosity flashing her features just for the fracture of a second. “Complaints? I don’t recall filing any.”
“You said, two nights ago at the Calverton dinner, and I quote, ‘If I have to hear one more trust fund bore tell me about their polo horse, I will throw myself into the nearest harbor.’”
Rio tilted her head, considering, a sly grin creeping upon her lips. “See, now that does sound like me.” she reached and sipped the last watered-down sip of her whiskey, Alice now having her full attention. “And your solution to that is...?”
Wordlessly, Alice slipped the folder onto the table next to Rio. From within, she slowly drew out a glossy, creased flyer, straightening it as she pushed it closer. Cheap print, neon fonts. The kind of thing one found taped to lampposts downtown. The bold letters read:
The Velvet Room – Where Nights Never End. Magic on Stage with Star Dancer Agatha Harkness.
The image beneath the text was unmistakably low-budget and poor quality. Stage lights caught a woman mid-turn, her hair a tumble of wild dark brown waves, her body coiled like a spring. Not a flawless shot by any means, but there was something in the intensity of her gaze, the unapologetic sharpness of her smirk and the way the photographer had caught her mid-movement and yet her body seemed to sway deliberately even in the stillness of an image, that leapt off the page. A presence that bled right through the cheap print.
“A stripper?” Rio laughed, low and sharp, the surprised sound slicing through the quiet that had built while she’d been studying the piece of paper closely. “Alice, darling...” her fingers drummed against the glass table, eyes lowered as she looked back up at her assistant. “What do you think this is?”
“I anticipated that reaction.” Alice voice did not waver. “But I’ve done my research. She’ll be perfect for you and your... cause, Miss Vidal.”
Rio leaned forward and plucked the flyer between two fingers as though it might smudge her latest manicure if she touched it any more than that. She studied it more closely. The woman’s smile was razor-edged, almost daring. Eyes piercing – were they blue or green, it was hard to tell by the grainy solution. So very different from the usual soft, polished devotion Rio was surrounded by.
“What makes you say that? Doesn’t look that perfect,” Rio murmured, though there was an edge to her voice she couldn’t place hearing her own words spoken out loud.
“Oh, but she doesn’t have to, does she? She’ll be interesting. And isn’t that what you wanted?”
Rio set the flyer down with deliberate care, meeting Alice’s gaze again. “Interesting,” she repeated slowly, tasting every syllable on her tongue like good wine. She felt something flicker deep in her chest at the single word, and her smile spread slowly, sharp and promising. Agatha Harkness, magic on stage...
“Let me be the judge of that.”
A satisfied smile on Alice’s face at the response. “Shall I make arrangements?”
“No” Rio said, rising with a lazy grace that belied the sudden hunger in her movement. She slid the flyer, now folded into a neat little square, into the pocket of her silk blazer. “This one, I want to see for myself.”