Silas stood at the edge of his private terrace, the Laurent building looming in the distance like a quiet cathedral. The night hadn't calmed his nerves; if anything, it had sharpened them into knives. That window, her window, had become his altar. A place of devotion, of torment, of worship.
Tonight, he wasn't content with gazing from afar.
Grace wasn't home. He knew that with the precision of someone who had studied her patterns like scripture. Her driver had taken the Bentley to a charity dinner on the far side of Riverton. A strategically public event, of course. One he had known about before her assistant did.
The door to her penthouse was not a mystery. His men had studied the security system for weeks. It was custom, complicated, but not impenetrable. A two-minute window, if timed perfectly, was all he needed. And Silas had always been good with timing.
When the elevator doors opened onto her private floor, silence greeted him. The hallway was long, lined with matte black panels and delicate lighting. The kind of space that whispered money, power, and a curated life.
He stepped inside her penthouse like a lover returning to a sanctuary he had only dreamed of. The door clicked shut behind him, not with guilt, but with a reverent silence, as if even the walls recognized him.
The living room was clean, curated, and elegant. Glass vases filled with lilies, books stacked in immaculate towers, a faint scent of sandalwood lingering in the air. Her world smelled like restraint. Control. But beneath it, something warmer. A hidden sweetness. Something she didn't let many see.
He moved through her home with quiet reverence. A gloved hand grazing the back of her velvet armchair. A lingering glance at the grand piano by the window. Her world was vast, polished, and cold. Yet the chill didn't bother him. He was used to the cold.
In the bedroom, he paused.
Her bed was large, the sheets pristine white. Unwrinkled. Tightly pulled. The pillows fluffed with a kind of sterile perfection. But on her vanity, traces of her remained. A necklace tossed carelessly. A tube of lipstick, Chanel 99, uncapped. A crystal hairbrush with a strand of black hair coiled in its bristles.
Silas stepped closer.
He picked up the lipstick. Rolled it slowly between his fingers. Lifted it to his nose.
Roses.
Then, to her closet. He opened the doors and was swallowed by her scent. Fabric in shades of black, ivory, and red. Silk, lace, velvet. Pieces of a woman the world thought they knew.
He reached for a red satin dress. The one she wore to the last gala.
Pressed it to his face.
Eyes closed.
Inhaled.
It wasn't sexual. Not yet. It was something worse. Deeper. A desire to possess. To dissolve into her. To crawl inside her skin and breathe where she breathed.
He turned, scanning the room again, and that's when he saw it. A journal on her bed. Not hidden, but not flaunted either. Its leather cover was worn at the edges, the way books look when they are loved often.
Silas reached for it with a trembling hand, not out of fear but reverence.
He opened the diary and found page after page of poetry. Her words, messy in ink, bleeding emotion. She wrote about love like someone who had never truly tasted it but hungered for it all the same. It wasn't lust she craved. It wasn't domination. It was safety. Innocence. A hand to hold her in the dark.
The contradiction twisted something inside him.
This woman, the one who commanded boardrooms, owned runways, and made grown men stammer, still believed in fairytales.
She wanted flowers in her kitchen, kisses on her forehead, someone who'd ask about her day and listen.
It made him furious. It made him weak. It made him want to be that man.
Silas didn't even flinch as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the small camera. A state-of-the-art device, no bigger than a button. He placed it discreetly inside the corner of her bookshelf, angled just right. Then another behind the vanity mirror. One more in the hallway.
He worked methodically, never rushed. Every movement calculated. Every placement perfect. No room would be untouched.
When he was done, he returned to her bedroom. Sat on the edge of her bed, legs wide, elbows on knees. Looking around the room like a king admiring his newly conquered kingdom.
She would never know.
She would never see him coming.
But soon, he would see everything.
Her rituals. Her weaknesses. Her loneliness.
And when the moment was right, he would step into her life, not as a stranger. But as someone who knew her better than she knew herself.
He stood. Walked to the window.
The city below sparkled in naïve ignorance.
Grace Laurent had built herself an empire.
Silas Vale had just breached the gates.