Celeste

The silence stretched for maybe three seconds before the door burst open again. Markus and Ava rushed in, weapons drawn, scanning the room like they expected to find bodies scattered across the floor, both of them were breathing hard, sweat beading on their foreheads.

"Where is she?" Markus demanded, his usual calm completely shot.

"Gone," Adrian said flatly.

"Gone?" Ava's eyes were wild, darting between us and the empty doorway. "She walked through our perimeter like it was made of goddamn tissue paper. Every sensor, every camera, nothing so much as blinked until she wanted it to."

I stared at them, trying to process this. "Wait. You guys saw her coming?"

"We saw nothing," Markus said, the frustration apparent in his voice. His hands shook slightly as he lowered his weapon. "One second the feeds were clear as day, next second she's knocking on your door like she's here for Sunday dinner."

Adrian moved to the control panel, his fingers quickly flying over the interface as security feeds rolled past on the screens. There were pictures of exterior shots, hallway cameras, and motion sensors and all of them showed empty corridors and peaceful grounds, like nothing had happened at all.

"How did she do it?," he said quietly, and there was something like admiration in his voice.

"That's impossible," I said.

Ava shook her head, running a hand through her hair. "I don't think so, not if you know exactly where they all are. Not if you built the whole system."

The implication hit me like a bucket of cold water. "Wait. She helped design your security?"

"She didn't just help," Adrian said, his voice getting that dangerous edge. "She designed way better systems than this, this setup is her being gentle with us."

I laughed, but it came out sharp and bitter. "Gentle? She just threatened to kidnap me and drag me off somewhere."

"She threatened to relocate you," he corrected, like the distinction actually mattered. "There's a difference."

"Is there? Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like the same thing."

Adrian finally looked at me, and something in his expression made my stomach drop to my shoes. "With Allegra, there's always a difference. She doesn't do anything halfway, she never has."

Markus cleared his throat. "Boss, we've got a bigger problem here. She mentioned the north wall specifically."

"Yeah, I heard her."

"That means she's been watching us long enough to map out all our blind spots, so if she got in once without us seeing so much as a shadow..."

"Then she can do it again whenever she wants," Adrian finished. "I know."

I felt like I was watching a conversation in another language. "Would someone please explain who this woman actually is? Because I'm getting really tired of being the only one in the dark here."

The three of them exchanged looks that told me they all knew something I didn't.

"She's Adrian's ex-partner," Ava said finally.

"Business partner," Adrian clarified quickly, too quickly. Liar.

"Among other things," Markus muttered under his breath.

Adrian shot him a sharp look. "Careful, Markus."

But I was already putting pieces together, and I didn't like the picture that was forming. "The old boss you mentioned, the one who picked you over her, that's what this whole thing is about, isn't it?"

"How long?" I asked.

"How long what?" Adrian said, but he knew what I was asking.

"How long were you two together?"

More silence, Ava shifted uncomfortably, like she wanted to disappear into the walls.

"I should probably go check the perimeter," she said.

Adrian said without taking his eyes off me. His voice was flat, resigned. "Five years. We worked together for five years."

"Worked together or..."

"Both," he said, "it ended badly."

I could feel my pulse hammering in my throat. "Define badly."

"She tried to have me killed."

The words hung in the air like smoke from a gun barrel.

Markus nodded grimly. "Yes. That kind of badly."

"Jesus Christ." I sat down hard on the couch, my legs suddenly feeling like jello. "And now she's here because...?"

"Because she wants what I built after Victor went down," Adrian said. "The whole operation, and she thinks taking you will hand it right to her."

"That doesn't make sense. Will it?" The question came out smaller than I meant it to.

He moved closer, close enough that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. Close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. "No."

Something in his tone made me believe him, but it also made me realize how little I actually knew about any of this, or even about him.

"What are the papers goin to say? What's going to happen to your beloved image?" I asked.

Adrian's jaw tightened like a vice. "That's not what matters now."

"It's not?"

"Celeste..."

"No." I held up a hand, backing away from him. "Just... no. Give me a second here."

The room felt too small suddenly. All these people with guns, all this talk about ex-partners and murder attempts, and I was standing in the middle of it like some kind of bystander to my own life. Suddenly all those galas and feelings of abandonment felt not so bad compared to this.

"I need to sit down." I moved to the couch, but my legs felt shaky as I collapsed onto the chair. "Actually, I need to understand something first."

Adrian set down the gun he'd been holding. "What?"

"How does someone just walk through your security? I mean, you've got cameras everywhere, motion sensors, armed guards..." I gestured vaguely at Markus and Ava. "What's the point of any of it if one woman can stroll in here whenever she wants?"

Heavy silence filled the room.

"It's complicated," Adrian said finally.

"No, it's not." My voice getting higher and higher. "Either your security works or it doesn't. And based on what just happened tonight, it doesn't."

Markus shifted uncomfortably. "She knew the system inside and out."

"Because she built it, yeah you told me," I said, as the pieces clicked together in my mind "She built your security, so of course she knows how to beat it. Which means..." I looked around at all of them. "Which means anyone else she's told about the weaknesses can get in here too."

Ava cleared her throat. "We can upgrade—"

"Can you?" I laughed, but there wasn't any humor in it. "How can you play defense against someone who wrote the playbook."

Adrian moved toward me, but I held up my hand again.

"And another thing. Five years, you said? You worked with this woman for five years?" I stared at him. "What kind of work exactly? Because she didn't seem like the type to run a flower shop. She said something about weapons or...?"

"Celeste..."

"Don't. Just... don't give me some vague non-answer." I stood up, pacing to the other side of the room. "I agreed to my dad's request to marry you because we needed the help and because I thought you were some kind of cookie cutter businessman. What's the worst that could happen, right? Maybe I would be a little lonely, or you could be a little shady, sure, but..." I trailed off, looking at the weapons cabinet, at Markus and Ava standing there like soldiers. "What the hell did I marry into? What have I done?"

"You know what you married into," Adrian said quietly.

"Do I? Because right now it feels like I don't know anything." My hands were shaking, so I crossed my arms to hide it. "Your ex-business partner just threatened to kidnap me, and you're standing there talking about it like it's a normal Tuesday."

"It's not normal."

"Isn't it though?" I turned to face him fully. "Be honest with me, Adrian. How often does this kind of thing happen? People with guns showing up at the house, mysterious phone calls, photos of me being taken without my knowledge?"

He didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"Jesus." I ran my hands through my hair. "And what am I supposed to do now? Just sit here and wait for the next psycho to show up?"

"You're supposed to let us handle it," Markus said.

I laughed, and this time there was a sharp edge to it, I was going crazy. "Like you handled tonight? Like you handled all those other times people got close enough to take pictures of me?"

"That's different," Ava said.

"Is it? From my perspective, Ava, it looks like I'm married to someone whose enemies have made me their target, and the people who are supposed to protect me can't even keep one woman from walking through the front door."

"She's still watching," I said, my voice hollow. "Right now, she's probably watching us argue about how useless your security is."

Adrian's face was stone. "She won't be back here, I'll make sure of it."

"What's difference does it make?"

"The difference is that she wants something from me, not you."

"But she's willing to use me to get it." I sat back down, suddenly exhausted. "God, what did I get myself into?"