The next day felt different, maybe it was the smell of dirt still clinging to the kitchen windowsill, or maybe it was the way Adrian didn't disappear into his office first thing in the morning. The pots were lined up neatly along the kitchen window now, green sprigs pushing through the dark soil, now every time I walked past, I caught myself glancing at them and thinking of him.

I padded into the kitchen to find him already there with his sleeves rolled up, reading over a file with one hand and cradling a mug of coffee in the other. He didn’t look up right away, but when he did, his mouth curved just slightly.

“You’re awake early,” he said.

“You’ve been up longer,” I replied, nodding toward the stack of papers.

He set them aside. “Some things can wait.”

I arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

He gave a small shrug. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

It was just a glance and a small smile, nothing dramatic, but it settled somewhere warm in my chest. So I poured myself coffee, standing beside him at the counter, my shoulder brushing his, and neither of us moved away.

We ate breakfast like that, the warmth from the other night still between us, and I thought about how easy it would’ve been to just let the day go on like that, until I went upstairs to grab my phone and everything changed.

A white, unmarked envelope was sitting in the middle of my bed as I froze in the doorway. My bedroom door had been locked when I went down for coffee. I’d made sure to double check, especially since it was a habit I developed after everything that had happened. I moved toward the bed slowly, every sound in the room suddenly sharper in my ears, the hum of the vent and the faint creak of a floorboard under my heel.

I picked it up. There was no name written on it, neither was there a return address, and inside was a single brass key and a scrap of paper with five words, block letters cut from something glossy:

You should see what she’s hiding.

No “she” was named and there was no other explanation.

I was still staring at it when Adrian appeared in the doorway, he appeared fast enough that he must have been close by, his eyes flicking from the envelope to my face.

“What's wrong? Where did that come from?”

“It was here. I just found it on my bed.”

His jaw tightened. “And your door was locked?”

“Yes.”

He crossed the room, taking the envelope from me, turning it over as if it might reveal something. “Whoever left this got past security without triggering anything.”

“Like Allegra,” I said quietly.

“Exactly like Allegra.” He was already pulling out his phone, calling Markus.

By the time Markus arrived, the key and note were on the desk. Ava followed him in, her gaze sharp and appraising. “Where exactly did you find it?” she asked.

“On my bed,” I said again.

Ava’s eyes lingered on me, and I thought I caught a flicker of something, concern? Curiosity? “Do you have any idea who it’s about?”

“No,” I lied. Because in my head, one name was already circling: Marla.

“She’s the only one it could be,” Adrian said, as though he'd read my mind. “If Allegra wanted you to doubt her, this is exactly how she’d do it.”

Ava crossed her arms. “Then we find out where this key leads.”

“I don’t want you going anywhere near this,” Adrian told me, voice low but firm.

I folded my arms. “It was left for me. Maybe I should be there.”

“Absolutely not.” His tone left no room for argument, and yet the way his eyes softened and lingered on me a beat too long, undercut the steel.

Markus suggested they run the key through a lock database. Ava, strangely, pushed for urgency. “The longer we wait, the more chance whoever it belongs to cleans it out.”

“I’ll handle it,” Adrian said.

They left with the key, but when the door closed behind them, I stayed in my room, heart thudding. Because something about the timing and the way this appeared right after the gala, after Marla’s return, felt almost suspiciously perfect. And yet under all the suspicion, was something else I couldn’t quite shake: when Adrian had stood in my room, telling me to stay out of it, he’d looked like he was already calculating what it would take to keep me safe.

That night, I couldn't stop staring at the key sitting on Adrian's desk. Every time I tried to focus on what Ava and Markus were discussing, my attention kept drifting back to it.

"You need to stop fixating on that," Adrian said, noticing my distraction.

"I keep thinking about someone walking through the house while we were asleep. Just moving around like they owned the place."

"Whoever left it isn't here anymore. They dropped it off and left."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Because if someone like Allegra was still lurking around, we'd feel it. She doesn't do subtle when she's trying to make a statement."

We spent the better part of an hour with Ava and Markus, running through every possibility we could think of. Former staff members who might have kept copies of keys, business competitors with enough connections to bypass our security, anyone who had both motive and opportunity to leave cryptic messages. When Marla's name surfaced in the conversation, I caught the way Ava's expression shifted, like she was connecting dots we couldn't see yet. Even here, in the middle of a war I hadn’t signed up for, there were these small points of contact that felt like lifelines, like the brief brush of his arm against mine when he passed me coffee.

"We're going to sort this out," Adrian assured me after they'd gone.

"You keep saying that, but I still don't understand how. Where do we even start?"

"The same place we always start when something like this happens. We figure out what we're actually dealing with, and then we handle it accordingly."

He walked with me toward the stairs. Outside, rain had begun falling in earnest, creating a steady rhythm against the windows that should have been soothing but somehow wasn't.

"You've barely said a word since we found that envelope," he observed.

"I'm exhausted by all of this. By constantly feeling like we're being watched, like someone's always planning the next move while we're still trying to understand the last one."

"Is that really what's eating at you?"

I paused halfway up the stairs. "If this actually is Allegra's doing, then I don't understand the endgame. What's the point of leaving some old key where I'll find it? What's she hoping to accomplish?"

"She's reminding us that she can get close whenever she chooses to. That no matter how much security we have, no matter how many locks we put on the doors, she can still reach us if she decides she wants to."

When we reached my door, I found myself hesitating with my hand on the handle, reluctant to go inside and be alone with my thoughts.

"Do you really believe I'm safe here?"

"I believe you're as safe here as you could be anywhere else, given the circumstances."

"That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of our security situation."

"No, it's not. But it's the truth."

He squeezed my shoulder gently. "Try to get some rest. Tomorrow we'll start working on what that key actually opens."

Once I was alone in my room, I placed the key on the nightstand and tried to put it out of my mind. But every time I closed my eyes, I found myself imagining someone moving silently through our hallways, knowing exactly which door was mine, taking their time to position their message just where I'd be sure to discover it.

The rain continued its relentless drumming outside, and that brass key seemed to absorb every bit of light in the room, gleaming dully in the darkness.

Tomorrow we'd begin the process of finding out which lock it was meant to open.