"Wear something warm." Adrian's voice was a command wrapped in silk. The diamond at his cuff caught the morning light, flashing once like a warning. "We're going out."
Valeria froze in the doorway, the cashmere coat still in her hands. Her chest fluttered with a mixture of dread and curiosity. "Out… where?" she asked softly, tugging at the collar.
Adrian's gaze didn't leave the cityscape, the neon lights painting his sharp silhouette in silver and shadow. "To teach someone a lesson," he said, voice calm, lethal in its precision.
Her heartbeat quickened. The name went unsaid — Chesla. The girl who had mocked her, humiliated her, assumed cruelty was power. And Chantel, always in the background, calculating, waiting. Valeria's fingers clenched the coat. "Wait," she said, stopping him. "Listen to my plan."
Adrian turned, dark intensity sharpening, predator in patience. "Speak," he said.
"I won't act yet," Valeria said, steadying herself. "I must be whole before I face them. If I step into their world raw… haunted by last night… they'll see weakness. They'll rejoice. They'll think they've won." Her eyes flicked to the city below, and then back to him. "I'll disappear. Let them believe I'm gone, broken… vanished. Let arrogance blind them. And then… I will appear. Alive, or a ghost… they won't know. Every shadow, every silence — I'll haunt their certainty. Chesla will doubt herself, her senses, her victory. She will suffer… psychologically. And when she finally sees me… it will be too late."
Adrian's lips curved faintly. He stepped closer. "Disappear. Make them arrogant. Let them forget caution. And when they least expect it…" His voice dropped to steel. "…they'll meet truth."
Valeria's chest tightened. "I don't want pity. I don't want anyone thinking I'm fragile."
"I don't do pity," Adrian said, crouching slightly, eyes locked on hers. "I do results."
His hand lifted, cupping her jaw. Warmth grounded her. He leaned in, head hovering above her forehead — the ghost of a kiss, not desire, but promise. For a suspended heartbeat the world narrowed to the hush between them; she inhaled, waiting for the soft press that would seal the pact.
He stopped.
Not from doubt, but choice. He let that almost-kiss hang in the air like a vow half-whispered. Valeria's shoulders slumped; disappointment flickered across her face, small and honest.
Adrian's expression softened in a way she could not read. Then, almost imperceptibly, a smile curved at the corner of his mouth — private, unreadable — and he stepped back as if to make the moment hers alone. She did not see the smile fully; she only felt the quiet loss of what might have been.
"We do it my way," she whispered.
"Always," Adrian said, offering his arm as shield and promise. "Heal. Disappear. Reappear like lightning. I will be the thunder."