Lucien's POV:
There's a kind of quiet that only comes right before the animal strikes.
Not chaos. Not tension. Stillness.
The city hums beneath me, but I hear none of it. Just the sound of the bourbon sliding into the glass and the distant echo of my pulse as I sit in the back room of the penthouse, lights low, waiting.
Celeste is back.
I knew the moment the car dropped her off. The way her shoulders moved. Stiffer. Heavier. Whatever Damien tried to fix, he failed.
I gave her space. That was the hardest part.
But now? Now I move.
Adrien enters without knocking. "He's starting to suspect something. Her husband."
I don't look up. "And?"
"He's already pulled a copy of the clinic's visitor log. She doesn't know."
Of course he has.
That's the kind of man Damien is — soft in public, sharp in the dark. The kind who plays loyalty like a sport until he bleeds for an advantage. But he's too late.
Celeste is no longer within reach of his apologies or excuses. She's already beginning to slip into the in-between, the world she can't name but craves. The world I'm building for her, carefully, brick by glass brick.
I swirl the bourbon once and set it down.
"Let him suspect," I murmur. "It'll only make her see him more clearly."
Adrien frowns. "And if he confronts her?"
"Then he'll lose her. Faster."
---
I leave the penthouse at dusk, dressed without fanfare — tailored black, nothing loud. The kind of elegance that glides past notice.
Tonight isn't about presence. It's about message.
The boutique hotel she always mentions in passing, the one where she hosts client retreats and panels — I buy out the executive floor under a shell company. No guests for two nights. One suite lit subtly from within, a single parcel delivered to the front desk in a matte-black box.
Inside: a necklace. Thin gold chain. A locket. Empty.
The note beneath it reads only:
You decide what memory it holds.
She'll know it's from me.
Not because of the words. But because I gave her a choice.
And Celeste has spent her whole life inside a world of decisions made for her.
---
Later that night, I park two blocks from her building and sit in silence, watching her window. She's moving — pacing, maybe. There's a candle lit on the sill. The kind she lights when she's trying to slow her thoughts.
She's wearing something soft. Loose. Her hair's up — messy. That's when she's real.
That's when I want her most.
But want is not the plan. Not yet.
She hasn't come to me since that day. But she will. I felt it in her voice when she said goodbye, though she didn't say it literally. In the way she watched me with more than eyes.
She's in the war now — the one between duty and self. Between silence and ache.
And I'm not trying to win.
I'm just waiting until she realizes no one else deserves her surrender.
---
Back at the house, I pour another drink but don't touch it.
My phone buzzes. A message.
Adrien again.
Damien is digging deeper. He made contact with someone on the Moretti payroll.
I stare at the message, unmoving.
Now we have a problem.
The Moretti family isn't just dirty — they're reckless. If Damien makes noise with them, someone gets curious. Blood curious.
I don't need Celeste exposed to that world. Not yet.
I type back:
Cut the connection. Quietly.
Adrien replies a moment later:
Consider it done.
---
I head downstairs into the vault room — not for money, not for records.
For the art.
Most men like me collect stocks in shell companies, oil paintings, ancient coins.
I collect something rarer: pieces of surrender.
Photographs of moments where people let go. Installations that evoke control, submission, balance. All consented. All curated.
The newest addition isn't on the wall yet. It's a portrait. Oil. From an anonymous artist in Montmartre I paid handsomely to interpret an image of Celeste — altered, imagined, ethereal.
The likeness is slight. But the emotion?
Raw.
A woman on her knees. Not in weakness — but in defiance. Spine straight. Hands open. Eyes closed in power.
I study it. I imagine her seeing it.
I imagine her recognizing herself.
There's a storm coming.
Not just with Damien. With her.
Because she's going to break soon.
Not because I push her.
Because the life she's been holding together with thread is finally fraying.
Because the version of herself she's trying to suppress is clawing its way up.
And when she breaks? I'll be there.
Not to catch her.
But to show her how it feels to fall into something that doesn't shatter.
To fall into me.