The Italian's Passionate Return by Elizabeth Lennox

good night.”
    At least it wasn’t a cold night, she thought, trying desperately to find a silver lining to her crazy adventure. The late fall weather meant that the humidity had left the air but it was an abnormally warm autumn this year. Thankfully, the night air still hadn’t cooled down to the point where she’d need a coat. It was coming though. She could smell something in the air, could feel the warm front moving out of Washington, D.C. and wool coats would most likely be coming out very soon.
    The cab driver looked into the soft, green eyes of the beautiful woman and hesitated. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked, not sure that this gentle lady was prepared for what went on inside this particular nightclub. He’d never been in there himself, but he’d heard rumors. It wasn’t open to the public and only the very elite knew of this place. It was where the wealthy of the world came to play and they partied hard inside the benign looking edifice.
    Brianna warily looked up at the building, then back to the cab driver. Was she okay? She could honestly say she’d never been more frightened in her life. But fear was not going to deter her tonight. Turning back to the worried looking driver, she forced herself to smile brightly. “I’ll be fine,” she replied quickly, more to reassure herself than the cab driver. “But thank you for asking.”
    With that, she turned around and took a deep breath, not sure what to do next. The building didn’t look like a decadent nightclub patronized by the decadently bored and wealthy. In fact, it looked like just a normal office complex, although it was very elegant looking.
    “Coeur Tombe?” a tall, previously hidden man asked.
    Brianna looked in the direction of the voice, startled to hear anything at all. The darkness seemed to be abnormally quiet tonight. “Yes,” she replied, relieved that she was in the right place after all. She’d been expecting a long line of people trying to get into the club, calling out to a heavily muscled bouncer, begging for entry. The streets were empty and she’d been wondering if she’d gotten her information wrong.
    “This way,” the man said and opened the door, pressing a button that was basically hidden behind something on the cement wall of the building.
    A moment later, a pair of doors opened up and a warmly lit elevator appeared. She stared at the interior for a long moment, her heart racing and her mind telling her to run down the street to the brightly lit diner at the corner where it was safe. Instead, Brianna stepped through the door and took a deep breath. Looking around, she noticed only one button instead of a series of buttons that would take her to the various floors of the building. The strangely silent man pressed that button and the doors closed. She was startled, not sure what the button might be for. It almost felt like he was signaling someone but that didn’t make sense. Who would he be signaling?
    She found out a moment later when the elevator doors opened up again and she tentatively stepped through the next doorway. Instead of the peaceful, hesitant quiet of the night air outside, she found herself enveloped into a pulsating, throbbing darkness that was interspersed with flashing neon lights and a thick, blue and green mist rising from the floor somehow.
    As soon as she took a few steps forward, the mist enveloped her legs, adding a sense of mystery to the eerie atmosphere. She looked down, astonished to discover that she couldn’t see her feet any longer.
    So this was the fancy nightclub everyone was talking about, she thought as she stepped through the doors. There wasn’t a cover charge at the door like she was expecting. There wasn’t a big, beefy guard standing sentry. But there were probably hundreds of people, all glammed up and writhing on the dance floor, waitresses walking by with neon colored cocktails held high up in the air and a bar on each side with a well-lit backdrop,