Lyra didn't realize she was holding her breath until Elias disappeared into the crowd.
She exhaled slowly.
"That felt wrong," she said.
Aurelian's eyes were still scanning the room. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because he wasn't provoking," Aurelian replied. "He was concluding."
Lyra's stomach tightened. "Concluding what?"
"That he has enough information."
---
They left the gala earlier than planned.
Not rushed.
Not panicked.
But with the quiet understanding that something had shifted.
In the car back to the hotel, Lyra stared out the window at the Paris lights.
"He didn't look angry," she said.
"No."
"He didn't look satisfied either."
Aurelian nodded slightly. "He looked… resolved."
That word unsettled her more than anything else.
---
Her phone buzzed just as they entered the hotel suite.
One message.
Thank you for coming.
Lyra frowned.
That was new.
No taunt. No psychological twist.
Just gratitude.
She typed back carefully.
For what?
The reply came almost instantly.
For proving me wrong.
Lyra's heart thudded.
She looked at Aurelian and showed him.
He read it twice.
"He expected you to break," Aurelian said quietly.
"And I didn't."
"Yes."
Lyra swallowed. "So what happens now?"
Aurelian didn't answer immediately.
Because this was the part he understood too well.
"When a man like Elias loses interest in breaking something," he said slowly, "he looks for something else to break."
---
That night, Lyra couldn't sleep.
Not because she felt watched.
But because she didn't.
The absence of pressure felt unnatural now.
Like the silence before something irreversible.
At 2:11 a.m., her phone lit up again.
A final message.
You were never the target.
Her breath caught.
She sat up immediately.
Aurelian was awake at once. "What?"
She handed him the phone.
He read it.
And for the first time since this began—
Aurelian went completely still.
Not tense.
Not angry.
Still.
Lyra's voice was barely a whisper.
"If I wasn't the target…"
She didn't finish.
She didn't need to.
Aurelian already knew.
He had always known.
But he had hoped—
Desperately—
That he was wrong.